WASHINGTON  - Good news for Turkey’s Sultan Kosen, at eight foot three (2.51 meters) the world’s tallest living man: he can now say with confidence that he’s finally grown up.

Nearly two years after gamma ray radiosurgery at the University of Virgina, doctors confirmed that Kosen, 29, has overcome acromegaly, a rare hormonal disorder that caused him to keep growing well into adulthood. “He’s stopped growing, which is good,” said neurosurgeon Jason Sheehan, who performed the non-invasive procedure that zapped the troublesome pituitary tumor deep inside Kosen’s brain with extreme precision.
“He will still have some medical therapy to deal with the excessive height he has achieved,” Sheehan told AFP by telephone from the University of Virginia Medical Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. “However, it is hopeful that he will not have any additional challenges because of continued growth.”
Kosen now is traveling in Italy, where he “appears to be doing reasonably well” after recovering from previous thigh and hip fractures, said Sheehan, who spoke this week with the man’s family and his Turkish endocrinologist. Born into a farming family in Mardin, southeastern Turkey, Kosen gained global celebrity status in September 2009 when Guinness World Records declared him to be “the tallest man in the world.”