Update 9/16/2014: It has come to my attention just this morning from the amount of increased traffic to this website that there has been an update written about Karan. It seems that the website for International Business Times, based in the UK, did a piece on Karan entitled “India: Karan Singh is World’s Tallest 5-Year-Old at 5ft 7in“. A few Indian news websites also got the news and wrote their own piece on the little boy. Currently, he is now 5 years old and is now at 5′ 7”.

Some Scientific Analysis On Karan Singh’s Final Projected Adult Height

First, let’s remember the case of Igor Vovkovinskiy. When Igor was around 7 years old, his mother moved from one of the Russian nations to come to the USA. Igor was already 6 feet tall. We can use Igor as a standard or reference basis. Igor now stands around 7′ 8.3″.

Karan was said to be 4′ 7″ at the age of 2.5 years old, but that was in 2010. Since it is now at the end of 2014, he should be actually closer to 6 years old, NOT 5 years old this year. Being 5′ 7″ at the age of almost 6 years old, suggests that he will probably end up around the height of Igor, and has the potential to be taller.

Medically, the way that the endocrinologists have traditionally done a calculation of a person’s height is to look at how tall a person is at 2 years old and then double that. I would guess that Karan was around 3′ 9″ – 4′ 0″ when he was 2. That means that Karan’s adult height would be around 7′ 6″- 8′ 0″, which agrees with the growth pattern projections as predicted by looking at Igor.

Some quick back of the envelope calculations

It is generally said that for the average healthy growing male, they grow on average about 2-2.5 inches per year, starting from the age of 6 until bone maturity. Since Karan is about 6, let’s assume that he can keep that type of rate of vertical growth for the next 10 years, until he is around 16 years old, which is usually when height growth in people naturally starts to taper off. This also takes into account the insane growth spurts seen around ages 11-14, when puberty sets in. So we did account for puberty into the calculation, and just averaged out the rates of vertical growth over a 10 year span. We are talking about a kid here who has an above average growth pattern. In the years between 2010 and 2014 he went from 4′ 7″ to 5′ 7″, which shows a 2.5 inches of growth per year. At his current height, he would be 67 inches. Multiplying 2.5 inches by 10 years, and adding it to the 67 inches. it turns out that it comes out to 92 inches, which converts to 7′ 8″ tall. (He might grow more after the age of 16, which will happen, but those extra inches are accounted for in the 2.5 inches multiplied by 10 years calculation.)

If we look at the extreme cases of human height, and how their growth pattern worked out, it seems that they keep on growing into their 20s. Yao Ming supposedly kept growing until he was 22-23. If a child develops gigantism, the excess GH can somehow increase the amount of time to grow, just like what happened to Tanya Angus and Sultan Kosen, who both ended up growing even when they were around 25-27. The stranger thing is that GH Therapy somehow has the exact opposite effect when researchers looked at it in the lab, and saw that bone maturity was being accelerated.

Since Karan is idiopathically tall in stature, he will probably keep growing until he is around 23-24. I personally predict that Karan, given his combination of genetics and lifestyle, will end up around 7’8″-7’11”. The real hindrance to his growth is the level of sanitation and healthcare in his country, being India. India has a history of sub-par sanitation conditions. The fact that the kid was given mostly sweets when he was a kid by his parents, instead of wholesome food high in protein foods and a lot of dairy means that Karan’s real growth potential has been stunted. If Karan was born and raised in a country like the Netherlands or Denmark, with a high consumption of dairy products and milk and a high quality of living standard, he probably would have shattered some serious height records and ended up around 8″1-8’3″ as an adult.

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To make things a little lighter today, I wanted to make a post about the tallest toddler in the world. Enter Karan Singh.

Back in 2010 a few articles was written about this boy wonder who was towering over other babies his age. At the time (Fall 2010) he was 2 and a half years old and stood a crazy 4 feet 5 inches. Of course one does not need to assume a pituitary gland condition isn this case. It appears that his height is all genetic. His mother is Shweatlana Singh, who has been billed as Asia’s tallest woman. However that fact comes into contention because on the website The Tallest Man she is listed and measured before at “only” 6’8″.  His father is 6ft 7in tall Sanjay Singh. Now that is a tall family.

Karan himself is nearly double the height of kids his own age and has the height of most kids at the age of 10. He was born at 13 lb and 24 inches. Compared these numbers to say Yao Ming’s numbers (12 lb and unknown height length) and one realizes that this kid is going to be HUGE. His mother already is stating that he will soon outgrow her. Being at his age and height, he appears to be constantly hungry always asking for food.

Here is a nice picture of his mother to the right . Very tall. What is a little concerning to me is whether this child is truly going to get to his true maximum height getting only the type of food and nutrition that is available in his native country. Shouldn’t a toddler like him who has the potential to become 8 feet tall naturally be given the best in nutrition, food, and medical care? I am a big basketball fan and would enjoy watching him play in the NBA in maybe 15 years. Whatever happens I would like to keep track of his growth progress over the years to see if his height potential is reached as his parents proclaimed.

From the video he does look extremely large.
Reference Link 1 – Reference Link 2 – Reference Link 3