Interesting endocrine facts and figures
1. Who is the tallest man on record?
The man with the greatest medically documented height was Robert Wadlow of Alton, Illinois. He was 8 feet, 11.1 inches tall and weighed 439 pounds when he died in 1940 at age 22 years; he was 7 feet, 1.75 inches at age 13 years. His condition was the result of a growth hormone–secreting pituitary tumor that developed before closure of the skeletal epiphyseal plates (gigantism). The tallest currently living man is Xi Shun of China, who stands 7 feet, 8.95 inches tall.
2. Name the tallest woman on record.
Zeng Jinlian of Hunan Province, China, is the tallest woman on record. She was 8 feet, 1.75 inches just before her death at age 17 years in 1982 and had been 7 feet, 1.5 inches tall at age 13 years. She also had a growth hormone–secreting tumor that developed during childhood.
3. How tall was the shortest man on record?
Gul Mohammed of India was measured at 22.5 inches (57 cm) tall in 1990; he died in 1997. The shortest currently living man is Younis Edwan of Jordan, who is 25.5 inches (65 cm) tall.
4. Who is the shortest woman on record?
The shortest adult woman on record was Pauline Musters of the Netherlands. She was 23.2 inches tall and weighed 9 pounds shortly before her death at age 19 years in 1895. Because of her relatively normal proportions, she is believed to have had pituitary growth hormone deficiency, although growth hormone assays were clearly not available in 1895.
5. Who had the most variable adult stature?
Adam Rainer of Austria was a 3-feet, 10.45-inch dwarf at age 21 years but rapidly grew into a 7-foot, 1.75-inch, giant at age 32 years in 1931. He was 7 feet, 8 inches tall when he died in 1950 at age 51 years.
6. Which is the tallest tribe in Africa?
The Watusi (or Tutsi) tribe of Sudan, Rwanda, Burundi, and Central African Republic are the tallest in the world. The men average 6 feet, 5 inches, and the women average 5 feet, 10 inches. Their tall stature is believed to be a genetic adaptation.
7. Which is the shortest tribe?
The Mbuti pygmies of central Africa have the lowest mean height. The men average 4 feet, 6 inches, and the women 4 feet, 5 inches. Their short stature is thought to result from genetic resistance to growth hormone, possibly secondary to deficient growth hormone receptors.
8. Who was the heaviest man on record?
Jon Brower Minnoch of Bainbridge Island, Washington, was 6 feet, 1 inch tall and weighed approximately 1400 pounds at age 37 years, when he was admitted to the hospital with congestive heart failure. He remained in the hospital for 2 years on a 1200-calorie diet and was discharged at 476 pounds; his weight loss of 924 pounds is also a record. He weighed 798 pounds when he died at age 42 years in 1983. His wife weighed 110 pounds.
9. How much did the heaviest woman on record weigh?
The heaviest woman on record was Rosalie Bradford, who weighed 1199 pounds in 1987. She also holds the record for weight loss, having shed 917 pounds over the subsequent 7 years.
10. What is the greatest rate of weight gain ever recorded?
Arthur Knorr of the United States gained 294 pounds during the last 6 months of his life; this is an average weight gain of 1.6 pounds a day. Given that a pound of fat has about 3500 kcal, this represents an excess intake (above caloric expenditures) of 5600 kcal a day. Doris James holds the record for women, by having gained 328 pounds in the last year of her life (3150 kcal/day excess) before she died at age 38 years, weighing 675 pounds.
11. What is the largest recorded waist size?
Walter Hudson of New York, who stood 5 feet, 10 inches tall, had a peak weight of 1197 pounds and a waist size of 119 inches.
12. Who are the heaviest twins on record?
Billy McCrary and Benny McCrary of Hendersonville, North Carolina, weighed 743 and 723 pounds, respectively. Both had 84-inch waists. One brother died in a motorcycle accident, but the other is alive at the time of this printing.
13. What is the longest anyone has ever survived without food or water?
Andreas Mihavecz of Austria was put in jail in 1979. The guards forgot about him and gave him no food or water for 18 days, after which he was found still alive, but barely.
14. What is the greatest known number of children born to one woman in a lifetime?
A peasant woman from Shuya, east of Moscow, Russia, gave birth to 69 children from 1725 to 1765. She had 27 pregnancies, producing 16 pairs of twins, 7 sets of triplets, and 4 sets of quadruplets. Sixty-seven of the children survived infancy. Her husband had 18 more children with a second wife.
15. Who is the oldest known woman to give birth?
Adriana Emilia IIliescu of Romania gave birth to a daughter by cesarean section in 2005, at age 66 years, 230 days. Donna Maas of California, the oldest woman to give birth to twins, delivered twin boys by cesarean section in 2004 at age 57 years, 286 days.
16. What is the highest reported number of multiple births for a single gestation?
Ten births (decaplets) were reported in Brazil (1946), China (1936), and Spain (1924). Nine births (nonuplets) were recorded in Australia (1971), Philadelphia (1972), and Bangladesh (1977). The largest number to survive a multiple gestation is seven (septuplets), which has happened on three occasions; the mothers were Bobby McCaughey of Nebraska (1997), Nikem Chukwu of Texas (1998), and Hasna Mohammed Humair of Saudi Arabia (1998).
17. What is the highest single birth weight ever recorded?
Anna Bates, living in Seville, Ohio, gave birth to a 23-pound, 12-ounce (10.8 kg) baby boy who died 11 hours later in 1879. Anna was 7 feet, 5.5 inches tall. Carmelina Fedele of Italy gave birth in 1955 to the largest surviving baby, who weighed 22 pounds, 8 ounces (10.2 kg).
18. What is the oldest age to which a human has been documented to live?
Jeanne Louise Calment of Arles, France, lived to be 122 years, 164 days old. She died on August 4, 1997. The oldest man was Shigechiyo Izumi of Japan, who lived to be 120 years, 237 days old before he died in 1986.
19. What is the highest blood glucose level ever reported?
A 12-year-old boy with new-onset diabetes mellitus was still conscious when he was discovered to have a blood glucose level of 2350 mg/dL in 1995.
20. What is the record for most kidney stones produced by one individual?
21. What is the largest tumor ever reported?
22. What is the longest hair ever recorded?
Hoo Sateow of Thailand had his hair measured at 16 feet, 11 inches in 1997. He had not cut his hair for 70 years.
23. What is the record distance walked by an individual in 24 hours?
The record for men is 142.25 miles, by Jesse Castenda of the United States in 1976. The record for women is 131.27 miles, by Annie Van der Meer-Timmerman of the Netherlands in 1986. The 24-hour record for an individual in a wheelchair is 77.58 miles, by Nik Nikzaban of Canada in 2000.
24. Did King David of Israel have an endocrine disorder?
“When King David was old and advanced in years, though they spread covers over him, he could not keep warm. His servants therefore said to him, ‘Let a young virgin be sought to attend you, lord king, and to nurse you. If she sleeps with your royal majesty, you will be kept warm.’ . . . The maiden, who was very beautiful, nursed the king and cared for him, but the king did not have relations with her” (I Kings 1:1–4). Some speculate that King David was afflicted with hypothyroidism.
25. What endocrine disorder could Goliath of Gath have had?
Goliath of Gath, who was killed by a stone from David’s sling (I Samuel 17:1–51), probably stood about 6 feet, 10 inches. His tall stature may have resulted from a growth hormone–secreting pituitary tumor. Others add that the ease with which David’s stone became embedded in Goliath’s skull may have been the result of hyperparathyroidism, and his bizarre behavior may have resulted from hypoglycemia caused by an insulinoma. Goliath may thus have had the earliest known case of multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 syndrome.
26. What endocrine disorder did President John F. Kennedy have?
WEBSITEBaumann, G, Shaw, MN, Merimee, TJ. Low levels of high affinity growth hormone-binding protein in African Pygmies. N Engl J Med. 1989;320:1705–1709.
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Folkard C, ed. The Guinness book of world records. New York: Bantam Books, 2003.
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Camden, NJ. The New American Bible. Thomas Nelson, Inc: Catholic Publishers; 1971.
