Tumor caused giant woman’s growth

Tanya Angus has a rare disorder that causes her to keep growing beyond her already gigantic size of 6-feet 6-inches and 476 pounds. She is now considered one of the largest and heaviest woman on the planet, and she is still growing.

Tanya’s trouble began in her late teens when she noticed herself growing disproportionately. In two short years she was 6 feet tall and grew from size 14 to 16. A benign tumor had lodged in Tanya Angus’s brain stem and wrapped itself around her pituitary gland, causing an over-production of growth hormones. A normal person’s growth hormone is just 260. Tanya has a count of 3,000 of the hormone. Although most of the tumor has been removed in 2003, tiny pieces of it are still embedded in her brain and could not be operated on. In 2005, the tumor grew again and is now the size of an orange. Tanya has kept growing bigger and taller.

Tanya’s condition has no cure, and doctors still can not find the right combination of drugs that will halt her growth. Gigantism or acromegaly is almost always the result of an sporadic over-production of growth hormones, as in Tanya’s case, although there are cases where the disorder is genetic and heritable.

When Tanya appeared recently at NBC’s Today Show, she wanted people to know that this condition exists and people like her who suffer from acromegaly need understanding and support from the community.