I admit it. I have a fascination not just with how to increase height, but height in general. I enjoy reading articles that talk about giants, dwarfs, extreme human bodies, and people with deformity and disfigurement, often through some birth defect or genetic mutation. For me, I find that as I see more examples of how varied the human body can be, I become more tolerant and accepting of other people, no matter what shape and size they come in.

Plus, it is something interesting to talk about when you meet someone and feel like you run out of stuff to talk about. For example, you meet your new girlfriend’s parents and the inevitable awkward silence appears after some great light banter and humor. What do you? I try to make a note of the parent’s hair color, or eye color, and say an interesting fact about genetics and how they are unique or special.

With guys, I always give the compliment that they are a lot taller than I imagine or thought. With women, I try to compliment them on how young they look. I know, I am trying to butter them up so they will stop hating me for dating their daughter.

So my next “fun fact of the day” starts with a question, “Who was the biggest person to ever exist?” Now, that is a rather hard question to answer. When people are talking about “big” they are using the measurement unit of “size”. but size and big are more qualitative words which can not be measured. When people talk about size, they can either be talking about weight or height, the two main anthropomorphic ways humans are mainly measured.

With height, I think I have that covered quite well. I have stated in many of the previous posts who were the tallest documented people in history are.

With weight, that is also quite easy to pinpoint. We focus on the subject of word record setters in the weight department on this post, just for fun. From just a quick search on google typing in “heaviest man in history” or “fattest man ever” you get the mention of two main contenders.

The first is John Brower Minnoch which you can find the Wikipedia article about him HERE. His peak weight was about 1400 lbs (634 kg)!! He also stood at a respectable 6′ 1″ which puts his BMI at a heartache awaiting to happen number of 186 kg/ m^2. He was born in 19441 and lived to be 42 to 1983. His massive weight was attributed parted to massive generalized edema, a condition where the body accumulates excess extracellular fluid. A doctor found out that 900 of his lbs was from retaining that fluid. After he was hospitalized at the age of 39, he was able to drop his weight down to 476, but eventually regained a lot of the weight back because of this edema.

The other possible heaviest person is a man from Mexico Manuel Uribe (Wiki article located HERE), who reached a peak height of 1320 lb from suffering from massive obesity. He had been bedridden since 2001 until he got national recognition and attention from the Mexican TV stations. He was featured on a documentary entitled The World’s Heaviest Man. Since coming into the public eye, he has been able to get help and treatment for his weight and has reduced his weight dramatically to “just” 440 lb. Since then, Manuel has been able to get remarried and seems very happy.

From Manuel’s own argument, this was the reason he had grown so big

“Life in the U.S. is like that. You just go from your desk to your car. I used to drive my car to and from work, so I didn’t get any exercise”

That is a testament of how unfit the average american has become today. I am imploring the people who come to this website to remember that we as human beings should be striving to grow vertically, not horizontally. It is well known among anthropologist that one of the best indications of the overall health of a country is the measurement of their height. On average, taller countries are healthier countries Given the extreme weight and obesity problems and sedentary lifestyle associated with the USA, it is extremely unlikely there was anyone heavier through history. Most people in history were mostly very skinny from a lack of ability to find food and strenuous work. I can’t imagine someone from ancient egypt, china, or rome being over 1000 lbs, much less over 300 lbs unlike many people I have seen walking around.

Of course it is important to note that anything in excess is not good, whether it be in weight or height since they leave to major inconveniences in life. It might be cool for some people to try to get into the record books by transforming their body but they are putting themselves in critical danger. My final point is, stay healthy, eat well , and exercise.

Today I was writing another post for this website and a rather amazing insight arrived in my mind which I don’t think many people have really considered or even realized. The existence of Sultan Kosen (the current world tallest person record holder) and his growth pattern should be enough proof to show that height increase is possible even after the growth plates have closed. Now follow me on my thought process.

We all know that an average male’s growth process is that he probably starts puberty somewhere within the 12-16 age range and his growth stops when he reaches around the 18-19 year range. There are some exceptions like ex-NBA star center 7′ 1″ David Robinson who grew 7 inches when he was 21 but we are referring to the average american male’s growth patterns. The growth plates of a guy should be closed at around age 19-20 when he reaches his full height. That is when most doctors will say that vertical growth had become impossible and we could only grow horizontally now (nice way of saying we are just going to grow fatter as we age over time).

However, if we analyze the growth rate and patterns of Sultan Kosen, we notice something strange. Yes, it is true that he is abnormal and we have to always take the fact that he had a tumor pressing agains his pituitary gland to always remember and consider when we are making any type of scientific and logical argument. We have to remember that he is a pituitary giant, but a rather standard traditional medical case of one. Even the famous life coach Anthony Robbins who grew from 5′ 3″ to 6′ 7″ within 2 years had a pituitary gland tumor issue which would explain his amazing size and growth rate.

Kosen has been named the tallest man in the world since late 209 when he at 8′ 1″ over took Bao Xishun who was “only” 7′ 9″ and held that title for a few years. However, Sultan Kösen was still growing and at a more recent meeting with the then tallest man of the U.S. George Bell, Sultan Kösen was measured at 8 feet 2 inches tall. On 8 February 2011 Sultan Kösen was measured in Ankara, Turkey at 8 feet 3 inches (251.4 cm). Source Guinness World Records.

It is stated from the Tallest Man website that “”Sultan Kosen came to the University of Virginia in 2010, so UVa doctors could treat the tumor in his pituitary gland that was causing excess growth hormone and gigantism. Previous, failed attempts to halt Kosen’s growth made the UVa team’s job all the harder. A UVa doctor put Kosen on medication to help balance his hormone levels. Dr. Jason Sheehan (UVa brain surgeon) used a tool called a gamma knife to attack the tumor, which was too deep in Kosen’s brain for conventional surgery. The technique used focused beams of radiation to target the tumor.””

Since then, he was remeasured late year in 2011 to be 8′ 3″ by Guinnes World Records, who are very thorough and accurate in their measurements. Apparently the Guinness World Record people take into account the fact that people’s heights vary throughout the day so they actually measure a person 6 times in one day and come out with an average of the  measurements and proclaim that as the “real” height. The claim is that he had “grown” by another 2 years since he was crown to push him even further away from other potential title contenders.

So the height research would be quick to ask? Did he really “grow” or did he maybe just learn or decide to straighten out his back to add more inches to his height? Kosen is indeed proud of his height unlike some really tall people so maybe he wanted to exhibit his own uniqueness to the world by making himself even taller through say some type of stretching exercise?

I would state that I seriously doubt that. From the Tallest Man website, I had stated that there was 2 other 8 feet tall people in the world right now. One of them is Moroccan Brahim Takioullah who has been verified to be around 8′ 1″ tall as measured by a French Doctor who measured his height three times during a day to take an average. Apparently the two giants have met each other and had their pictures taken with them standing side by side. If we look at the pictures, we can see that Kosen is clearly taller than Takioullah, by about 2″ as reported by the official people who did the measuring.

Kosen was born in Dec 1982. So in 2009 he was 27. From 2009 and 2011 he grew 2 inches. So he was 29 in 2011. The growth plates of a person even who has excess HGH being released should still be going through ordinary ages of growth plate fusion. If we just look at someone like the 16 year old Brazilian Elisany Silva, she has effectively stopped increasing in height. Her growth plates would have sealed but the excess HGH release would have eventually have given her acromegaly instead of gigantism once she past puberty.

My point is that even after Kosen passed puberty, assuming he went through a normal cycle even with the pituitary gland problem, his growth plates should have fused when he was 20-21. However ,even 6 years later at the age of 27, he was still growing. So how is that possible when the bones can no longer growth any more.

One could argue that his posture improved but I would actually say that his posture actually got worst from the age of 27 to 29. When we first heard about Kosen in 2009, he was able to get around using just a cane for support. Now his walking has gotten worse and he has required 2 crutches to support himself to walk. His irregular posture and standing style has not improved in anyway that would suggest he has been doing some form of stretching or yoga to align his back or vertebrate. If we look at the pictures of Kosen of how he looked and stood with his posture from 2009 and 2011, he looks about the same, but the only main difference in those 2 years was an extra 2 icnhes. So should we assume that he was wearing thick heeled shoes to give him even more added height? what kind of a guy would he be who was 8′ 1″ need to wear thick heeled shoes to make himself look 8′ 3″?

So clearly Kosen has grown, but his growth plates should have fused a long time ago, right? So what the hell is the excess of HGH release doing to make him add the extra 2 inches? 2 inches even on an 8 foot tall person can not be attributed to a measurement error, especially to the Guinness World Records people, who are very accurate at this particular record.

From a medical point, I have not read any literature that says that if one is suffering from an excess release of HGH from a pituitary tumor that their growth process is longer than the average human. Estrogen release should have still casued their growth plates to seal around the age of the age person. I strongly believe that sultan’s long bones had the growth plates fused together at the age of 20-21 and he grew still after that in some way. This proves in my viewpoint quite conclusively that height increase is possible even after puberty and even after the bones and growth plates should have completely ossified.

Now we come to a very interesting question. It seems like all of the giants we have ever known became that way because of some form of medical condition which gave them their great size. The tallest man in recoded history Robert Wadlow had a hypertropic (oversized) pituitary gland which never even allowed him to reach puberty even at the age of 22. The current tallest man Sultan Kosen got that way because of a tumor dislodged close to and pushing against his pituitary gland. It does seem like every single person over a certain height, around the 8 feet mark is from a disorder.

However, there are some giants among us who appear to be completely normal in their bodily function and can claim that their great size is hereditary and comes from genetics. The most famous person known is probably the ex-NBA star Yao Ming who stands at 7′ 6″. His height comes from his parents who stand 6′ 7″ and 6′ 3″ respectively. There are stories that showed that his grandfather was supposed to be the tallest man in all of Shanghai during his era in China. It is too bad Yao Ming was born during the chinese era of the 1- child policy. We might have seen some more Yao Mings like his younger sister or brother who could have been even bigger than him.

So I got curious and asked the obvious question “Who is the tallest natural giant today?” and “Who is the tallest natural giant in history?” What I mean is that the person’s height should not be from a pituitary condition or say Marfans Syndrome.

There appear to be 3 main contenders of the title of the current world’s tallest natural giant

1. Paul Sturgess – 7′ 7″ – 7′ 8″ from the UK – Father is of great stature

2. Ri- Myong-hun – 7′ 8.5″ – 7′ 9″ – From North Korea – (What is really puzzling to me is how such a tall non pituitary person can arrise from a country which is very well known for its decades of malnutrition thus its short statured citizens. ??)

3. Neil Fingleton – 7′ 7.66″ from the UK – Entire family with his siblings all exhibit great height

There could totally possible even taller natural giants in the world like say from the Netherlands or Serbia or Croatia who don’t wish to come public and that is OK.

As for the tallest natural giant in history, Guinness World Records and people from the UK claim that right goes to a person named Angus MacAskill who was reported to stand 7′ 9″. It was claimed that he was the tallest, biggest, and strongest person who has ever lived. There are many stories about him and his feats of strength. I didn’t want to get into the details of his life but to note that many people from the UK have told tales of his great height and strength so it is possible his story and legend is slightly exagerated. To read more about him you can click on the resources HERE, HERE, HERE, or HERE.

I have looked around and can’t seem to be able to find an accurate photo or information about him. From some sources, it is believed that Angus MacAskill was not as tall as reported by other people. It is well known that people during the 19th century often exxagerated the height of really tall people to make them sound bigger and more powerful than they really were.

As for the documented giants who could have been just natural and genetic, there is the possibility that Vika Uppal who was reported to have stood at anywhere from 8′ 0″- 8′ 9″ could have been a natural giant. Some people claim that his facial bones structure and proportional body showed that he was not suffering from a pituitary condition. However , it was reported that Uppal died from a brain tumor operation so maybe he was not a true natural giant.

Overall, it is very difficult for me to answer the question of who was the tallest natural giant in human history. We have only had documented medical records for about 300 years and there have been plenty of legends in our human history where people talk about giants who lived in other tribes and civilization. How am I not to assume or theorize that there might have been a tribe somewhere in our human species past where through selective genetic selection where the tallest members mated, allowed for and created a group of people who were 9 foot, or even 10 foot in height? They might have died out when they faced their neighbors in say combat or war and was never heard of. Of course, I would not know that and no one would know such a fact in this day and age where it seems like everyone’s data and information is collected and stored somewhere for other people to look at.

I am just going to go with the whole theme for a while and write up a few more interesting posts about people who have extreme sized bodies since I personally find them so interesting. The next topic I wanted to research and write about is to figure out who are the tallest twins in the world, both men and women, identical or fraternal.

So far I have found out that there is a clear winner for the tallest twins in the world. For the last 15 years at least, that honor and the title of “World’s Tallest Twins” goes to Jim and Michael Lanier. Mike Lanier and his twin brother Jim Lanier (b. 27 November 1969) of Troy, Michigan are the tallest identical twins in the world, and stand 7 feet 6 inches (2.28 meters) each. The Lanier Brothers played college basketball at The University of Denver and UCLA, respectively. They have been featured on the Maury Povich Show. However, on the Guinness World Records website they are listed at 7′ 3″. I don’t know why though. (Resource 1, Resource 2, Resource 3)

As for the tallest female twins in the world, the title currently goes to Claire and Anne Recht of the USA who stand at 6′ 7″ (2.01 meters) each. They have been recognized by the Guinness Word Records for their title so it is official. (Resource 1, Resource 2) That’s all for now.

In the last post I wrote I had talked about the tallest couple that has ever existed in history, at least in the age where documentation was possible. It is rare indeed to spot any man over 7 foot tall, like 1 out of 100,000 chance of that happening. I have only seen that happen maybe 15-16 times in my own life. It is rarer to see a woman even close to 7 feet tall. I personally might have seen one woman who was around the 6′ 9″- 6′ 10″ range at a city fair once and I was not even sure about that. But to see a man and woman together who are both 7 foot, and married as a couple could be one of the rarest sights one ever gets to see in one’s life, except say you happened to see Bigfoot or an UFO land on your front porch.

From the meeting and culmination of the tallest couple ever, Anna Haining Bates and Martin Van Buren Bates had conceived of two children. The first one was a girl who was supposed to be the same size as Anna when she was born (around 18 lbs, more than twice as large as an average sized baby) but the girl turned out to be a stillborn. The 2nd child they had was a boy and this boy is claimed to have been the biggest baby to have ever been born. It was stated that the first initial labor process took 36 hours. Sounds painful. Apparently the baby boy’s head was too big to pass through so the doctors tried to use forceps.

From the Wikipedia article on Anna Haining Bates click HERE. The baby was born on 19 January, but he survived only 11 hours. He was the largest newborn ever recorded, at 10.8 kg, or 23.12 pounds and nearly 30 inches (71 centimeters) tall and each of his feet were six inches (152 mm) long. Now THAT is a large baby. However, was he the largest baby ever recorded?

So currently the biggest and longest baby in history has measurements of weight: 23.12 lbs and length/height: 30 inches

I did some more research over the internet using google and typed in “largest baby” and decided to see what popped up. There seems to be a few contenders for the title of “world’s biggest baby” for the current world today . Let me list a few of the them.

1. Chun Chun – Xinxiang CIty, Henan Province, China – 2012 – 15.52lbs (7.04kgs) in central China. – (Resource 1, Resource 2)

2. North Sumatra, Indonesia – 2009 – A full two-feet long and weighing 8.7kg (over 19 lbs), the huge child was born via a caesarean section. The unnamed baby is in healthy condition despite initially needing oxygen to overcome breathing problems.  The cause of his great size is because his mother suffers from diabetes. (Resource 1, Resource 2)

3. Niamh – Britain’s biggest baby girl — weighing 14 lbs 4oz. – was nearly DOUBLE the average UK girl’s weight of 7lbs 4oz when born by caesarean. (Resource 1)

4. JaMichael – Texas, USA, – 2011 – weighing 16 lbs 1 oz. 2 feet long. Janet Johnson is mother has diabetes (Resource 1)

5. Kiran Singh – Meerut, India – (measured at 10 month old, so technically was still a baby at that age) – 22kg (3st 7lb) and at nearly 1m (3ft 2in) tall – (Resource 1)

6. Hegang, Heilongjiang Province, China – 2007 – (a little more than 2 ‘ 5.5″ tall) 0.75 meters , exceeding the previous “super baby” by 0.09 meters. He weighs 7.05 kilograms, 0.08 kilograms less than the world’s heaviest, ranking second in the world. (Resource 1)

7. Lu Hao, China – 3 years old – (2011) – 132 lbs !! – 5 times the size of a child his own age – Born at 5.7 lbs – He already gets short of breath on the slightest effort. He can also expect joint damage, high blood pressure, heart trouble and diabetes, if he hasn’t developed these complications already. (Resource 1, Resource 2)

On a related note, a study was done where the size and height of siblings were compared. It turns out that children who were born later in a woman’s succession of children were more likely to be bigger and taller than her earlier children. Doctors and Researchers hypothesize it is because after have a few kids, the woman’s uterus and birth canal becomes bigger and more accomodating for her next children. That means that your younger sisters and brothers are probably going to be bigger than you because they were born later and your mother had more room down there to grow a baby.

That is a strange way to reason but makes some sense. For example, the largest toddler in the world Karan Singh is the son of one of the talles women in the world. The biggest and longest recorded baby ever born was to Anna Haining Bates, who was one of the tallest women to ever exist.

I often like to add a few posts that are entertaining and for today, that post will be about the tallest couple that has ever been documented in history.

It is often quite easy to find couples where the guy is far larger than the girl, and it is rare to see couples where the female is taller than the guy. Over the years the stigma of shorter men dating taller women has started to abate but the standard is still that the women will be shorter than the men. Most women of short stature actually prefer to be with really tall men. I can only theorize that these petit who always choose to date and mate with really tall men are unconsciously trying to overcompensate for their own limited size and hope at some level that their partner’s size and genes can be dominant enough to pass on their height to her future children.

As for shorter men who date taller women, those types of men are often also suffering from some form of insecurity and think that by showing that they can date tall women, they can validate their self worth to the rest of the world. For the women in the relationship, they don’t seem to care about height too much but focus more on how much the other person, the guy can love them and treat them right.

For the tallest couple in history, it seemed like both people were able to be happy with their relative height. For the guy in the relationship, Martin Van Buren Bates also known as “The Kentucky Giant” for his fame during the American Civil War was 7′ 9″, no small man himself. From the Wikipedia article about him found HERE, they state that,

“Though born an infant of normal size into a family of normal-sized people in Letcher County, Kentucky, he is said to at one time have been 7 feet 11 inches (2.41 m) in height. The Guinness Book of World Records and other reputable sources have him listed at being 7 feet 9 inches (2.36 m) tall and weighing 470 pounds (213.64 kg). His first occupation was as a schoolteacher, but upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he joined the Confederate Army as a private in the 5th Kentucky Infantry in September 1861, rising to the rank of captain within short order. His ferocity in battle, aided by his imposing figure, made him legendary, with Union soldiers telling tales of a “Confederate giant who’s as big as five men and fights like fifty”.

From the pictures of him standing next to his wife thought, we know better and estimated his height to be less, probably around the 7′ 5″ mark. I mean come on, we all know that men like to exaggerate their height (as well as other body parts) it was stated recently that Bates may have been “only” 7′ 3″. On the tallest man website, he is estimated to be actually 7′ 3.5″ which seems to be about right.

His wife Anna Haining Bates is a true giant in the family, standing at an astounding 7′ 5.5″. If she was truly of that height, then she is probably one of the biggest and healthiest female giants ever in history. If we looked at another photo we would note that in most photos of Anna and Martin together, they are about even in relative height. Of course Anna has a dress on so we can not see what type of footwear she has on. Since it is the 19th century in the US, we can assume she has no pumps or high heels on so we could guess that she is probably wearing flat footwear.

When we then look at the photos of Martin, we can see that he is wearing boots, which often can give a 1.5″-2.0″ added height. This is why I have concluded that Martin is probably not the 7′ 9″ or 7′ 11″ that he was billed as when he went on tour with the circus. Those Barnum & Bailey people are well known for exaggerating the heights of their supposed “giants” who are indeed tall, but not true in their stated height.

However,I would say the point is lost. All I need to state is that the guy was tall, and the girl was even TALLER. Together, they are probably the only 7 foot couple to ever exist, at least in documented history. Combined together, their total height is almost to 15 feet. (If you can find a taller couple, tell me and I will edit this post)

They would go one to have two children, both who died either in childbirth or never made it to live. One of the children given birth to would be measured and turn out to be the biggest baby to ever be born and recorded. Of course, that topic will be another post for another day.

To Learn more about Anna Haining Bates, you can either go to the Tallest Man website HERE or Wikipedia link HERE. To learn more about the couple, click HERE.

Recently, the county of Letcher in Kentucky decided to honor their historical giant. Link is HERE.