Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Tallest teenager - Brenden Adams sets world record

 ELLENSBURG, WA, USA -- Brenden Adams , 14, is 7 foot 5 inches , setting the world record for the tallest teenager .

 Photo: Thirteen-year-old Brenden Adams, from Washington, USA, is the world's tallest teenager , standing 7 foot 4 inches tall. Photo: ITV
   ( enlarge photo )

Brenden Adams : "It was my 12th chromosome that broke in half and flipped over and reattached," although doctors do not know what exactly caused his rapid growth after birth.

   Normal-sized at birth, Brenden grew quickly – getting all his baby teeth by four months and growing as tall as an 8-year old by the time he was 4.

   Still, he is extremely limited on the football field. "He can't run, he can't really jump," his coach Kevin Wetzel told KXLY4. "There's not a whole lot he can do. If you want to get him some action, you have to be creative."

   So Wetzel designed a play specifically for him. He goes out on a five-yard buttonhook play and the quarterback just floats the ball up to him. Even the next tallest player on the field can't jump nearly as high as Brendan can reach.

    In Brenden’s case, his 12th chromosomes don’t match. Experts don’t know why, but the middle of one of them broke off, flipped around and re-attached at the zygote stage of development, disrupting a critical gene that controls growth.

    “This gene is functioning despite the regulation that it shouldn’t be,” said Dr. Gad Kletter, Brenden’s endocrinologist at Swedish Hospital in Seattle. “It’s over-functioning. He was predicted to be over eight foot tall.”

    Kletter finally figured out how to stop Brenden Adam’s hyperactive growth gene – by inducing puberty. “We induced puberty,” explained Kletter about the weekly shots of testosterone, “to fuse the bones and stop the growth.”

   And so far, the shots seem to be successful. Brenden's growth has slowed down.

   Brenden’s mom, Debbie Ezell, said he requires a team of doctors simply to stay on top of his ever-growing frame. He has oversized joints that restrict his movements, fatty tumors, and extra teeth – twelve of which were recently removed.

    Amazingly, his dad, Willie Adams, said there was no hint of any of this when Brenden was born at 7 pounds, 3 ounces and 19 1/2 inches in length. His mom says they first started to notice something was different at his 2 month check-up. "They said, these measurements just aren't right. He's too long," Ezell said. "And at four months, he had all of his teeth."

    Brenden has a terribly hard time finding clothes and often is the subject of long stares from people when he walks around in public.

   Oprah Winfrey enlisted the help of her superstar basketball playing friend Shaquille O’Neal to fulfill Brenden’s dream of meeting his favorite celebrity. At 7'2" tall and 350lbs, Shaq is no stranger to sticking out like a sore thumb in a crowd, and was happy to hang out with Brenden for a couple days.
    Shaq even brought Brenden to his personal tailor to get fitted for some new threads.

    When a charity offered to grant him a wish, he asked for a bicycle big enough for him to ride without his knees cramping in pain.

   His favorite subjects in school: "Probably PE and math." His dream car: "a 1969 Dodge Charger."

    The good news is the Ellerton, Washington community has embraced the good-hearted youngster as one of their own. Community fundraising helped Brenden’s family build a new home with extra high ceilings and doorways, but the gangly preteen still has a hard time folding himself into mom’s SUV.

     In his mom's sport utility vehicle, he has to fold down the second row of seats, sit in the third row and stretch his legs out over the middle row in order to sit comfortably. His shoe size is 18 and still growing.  

    "No one has his condition in the world, but then no one in the world has his heart of gold," Ezell said. "People are kind, people are generous, but I don't believe there's anyone with a heart like his."