Born on October 27, 1968, in Ras Jebel (northeastern Tunisia), Radhouane Charbib was widely recognized as the tallest living man from 1999 to 2005, until Bao Xishun‘s height, the tallest Chinese man, was measured on January 15, 2005. Bao was only 0.08 inches longer than him. Charbib was born into a family of three sisters and six brothers, and he was the fourth of nine children.
The Tallest Living Person
On April 23, 1999, at the Hilton Hotel in Tunis, Guinness World Records officially acknowledged Radhouane Charbib’s height as 7 feet 9 inches (2.36 meters). Therefore, he beat the previous record holders, a Pakistani (Alam Channa) and a Korean (Ri Myung Hun), by a few inches and became the tallest living person.
Charbib’s Extraordinary Growth
When Charbib was 15 years old, he stood 5 feet 7.3 inches (1.71 meters) tall; by 17, he was 6 feet 6.7 inches (2 meters); and by 18, he was 7 feet 6.5 inches (2.30 meters) tall.
Radhouane Charbib’s shoe size was measured 55 (EU), and he weighed 366 pounds (166 kg). But his giant size came at a cost to his health, which is the case with almost all extremely tall humans with gigantism, such as Robert Wadlow (the tallest person in recorded history), Zeng Jinlian (one of the tallest women), or John Rogan (the tallest African American).
Giantism is the term for an extremely tall height that develops in childhood or adolescence as a result of an abnormally high growth hormone blood concentration. The growth hormone is secreted by the pituitary gland, which is a pea-sized gland at the base of the brain.
Some Health Complications
The medical examinations of Radhouane Charbib found an overactive pituitary gland, which resulted in gigantism, which ultimately caused diabetes. An adenoma, a tumor of the pituitary gland, is almost invariably the root cause of gigantism. The gigantism results in extreme body proportion in individuals, like Charbib.
Later in his life, Charbib’s blood sugar levels began to show sudden decreases due to his diabetes. But they have been controlled today, thanks to the several operations he’s had. He is 54 years old now, and he is living a relatively healthy life.
Gigantism is a complicated condition. Most people with this condition in history often lived relatively short lives, such as John Middleton the Giant or Bernard Coyne, the tallest human of his time. Today, the tallest living person is Turk Sultan Kösen, who measures 8 feet 3 inches (2.51 m).
Charbib Actually Got Shorter Today
After losing his title as the tallest man in the world, Radhouane Charbib was publicly measured without shoes on a Japanese television program in June 2007. In the show, Charbib stood at a mere 7 feet and 5.4 inches (227 cm). It appeared that he had lost 3.5 inches in height in the last eight years due to a complication in his spine curvature.