World's Tallest Giants

This film explores the medical conditions associated with extreme height, and explores the lives of the tallest man and the tallest woman in the world.

The tallest woman, Yao Defen, has suffered years of ill health caused by a tumour on her pituitary gland. The tumour is the cause of her extreme height, over-producing growth hormones, and suppressing other vital hormones necessary for a normal healthy life.

Now the side effects of her tumour have caused her to have a massive fall and she’s critically ill in hospital. She desperately needs treatment to arrest the tumour that is causing her to keep growing. But first, doctors need to treat massive internal bleeding on her brain that is threatening her life.

Professor Ashley Grossman, a leading world expert in gigantism from London, decides to travel to China to meet Defen. He hopes he can help her with some of her long-term medical problems.

Zhang Juncai, the tallest man in the world, has also heard of Defen’s plight and rushes to her bedside. Perhaps he, more than anyone, knows what it’s like to tower above the rest of humanity, and the strain this grand stature puts on your health. If he can make it to the hospital in time, it will be the first time ever that the tallest man and woman in the world have met.

The film also visits Beatrice and Suzanne Bofia in Tuscon, Arizona, who are meeting adjudicators from the Guinness Book of World Records as they bid to become the new world’s tallest female twins.