Thank you Ariana and the team at Martha Stewart for the response to the "giant question"

--It's long, but worth the read..very funny and informative

####names have been changed to protect the innocent

From: Ariana ##### <********@hotmail.com>
Date: Jul 12, 2005 3:47 PM
Subject: all you ever wanted to know about giants but couldn't find with google!
To: *******@******.com, *****@gmail.com

A Giant Tale…I copied and pasted most of this with the help of Karina Naomi Une, a med student with a web site and WAY too much time on her hands. Since she joins us in our quest for knowledge regarding all things bigger (but as ##### told us, not always better,) I trust her and so should you!***

Special shout out to the research department here at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for their googling powers. Plus, they make a mean batch of cupcakes! ***

G UNIT!
Gigantism (from Greek gigas, gigantos "giant") is a VERY rare disease. (PS: we're calling them Gigazzzz from here on out!) Each year it only occurs in three out of every 1 million people. (Now, I don't know the exact world population at this moment, but it seems to me that this number makes our chances of actually knowing a real giant SLIM TO NONE… Damnit!) The condition is characterized by excessive height growth. The syndrome results from a chronic exposure to GH (Growth Hormone) and is not determined simply by height as originally thought. (Who knew??? i.e.: You can say "He had a giant penis" but you cannot however say "He was a giant" without being technically incorrect.) Gigantism (or giantism) is not a currently used medical term and there is no precise definition of the degree of tallness which qualifies a person to be termed a "g-g-g-g-g-GIGGGGGA." The term has been typically applied to those whose height is not just in the upper 1% of the population but several standard deviations above mean for persons of the same sex, age, and ethnic ancestry. Typical adult heights of Americans and Europeans to whom the term might be applied are 7.5 to 8.5 feet (216-259 cm), although the term is rarely applied to basketball players and those whose heights appear to be the healthy result of normal genetics and nutrition. (Now, at this point the question of how tall do you have to be to be a gigantee? Is pretty much answered. However, I feel the need to go on and edumacate you on all the giantly fun things I found out while researching this…reason number 3,746,327,462,346 Martha CLEARLY isn't giving me enough to do at work!)

That pesky little pituitary gland Gigantis, or g unit membership as I like to refer to it as, is often caused by a pituitary adenoma GH secretin… so they're secreting something they shouldn't… RED FLAG ANYONE??? Tumors can also sometimes cause such secretions… yummmmmmaaaaay! Pituitary gigantism due to growth hormone excess is the single condition which accounts for nearly all cases of pathologic extreme height. The oversecretion of GH causes the symptoms of depending on the duration, amplitude and number of secretory episodes. (So how often, how well and how many times the pituitary gets off, basically.) Coincidentally, this also correlates to how big of an asshole said giant in discussion actually is since his pituitary is getting off all over town.

Clinical Features… as if the mammoth height wasn't obvious enough! Distinctive features and pathologic findings associated with GH excess usually begin in the third or fourth decade (aka mid life crisis time, which means we shouldn't really know any REAL giants at this point in our young and drunken glam years) and progress insidiously. The mean age at diagnosis is 42 years. Typically the duration of symptoms is usually 5-10 years before the diagnosis. (So suspected giants will start morphing around age 32-37, which gives us a few years to meet some at the bars/ basketball courts/freak conventions/or at the circus.)

Soft tissue proliferation (that doesn't sound good... or DOES it?? Hmm…) is one of the early manifestations. Leading to the classic features: enlargement of the hands, feet and facial features, the most common complaint of the patients. (Notice increased penis size is NOT a common complaint… unless ###### has to see it)

"The major problem of the treatment is when the patients come to medical attention. The tumor is typically in a very aggressive phase producing headache, visual field changes and/or hypopituitarism (Resulting from the mass effect)." (I'm sorry… the major problem isn't that they're 10 feet tall??? it's a headache and bad eyesight?!?)
Some interesting/ yucky g unit characteristics *Facial changes *Coarsening of features *Diastema (widely spaced teeth) (HOTTTT!) *Acral enlargement *Increased ring and shoe sizes *Hands become enlarged, moist and soft. (mmm, that sounds nice, doesn't it?)

*Skin changes *Generalized Thickening *Increased sweating and oiliness – an important sign of activity of thedisease. *Hypertrichosis, Acanthosis nigricans, acne (ie: not so jolly and green after all!)

Local Effects of Pituitary (mass effect) *Headache; visual impairment, hypopituitarism, rhinorrhea (I don't know what this rhinorrhea is, per se, but does it make them horny? Who wants a hornygiant??)

Cardiovascular disease *Hypertension (Hyper and horny?? uh-oh!)

Respiratory Disease *Upper Airway Obstruction (Caused by Soft Tissue Overgrowth) *Sleep Apnea (I wouldn't sleep either, if I was drooping over ALL four sides of my California king!) *Endocrinopathy (due either to GH excess or to mechanical effects of theadenoma) *Diabetes Mellitus/Carbohydrate intolerance (And nobody is a happy camperwhile on Atkins AND crack!) *Decreased libido or impotence (NOW this is a problem… huge members and no desire to use them? poor, poor giants.)

General Systemic Manifestations *Fatigue or lethargy *Weight Gain *Heat intolerance *Increased sleep requirement (Aka: top excuses told to men by their wives in bed)Other conditions of overgrowth or excessive tallness in childhood… NO SHIT!?! Children who are excessively tall are often referred to pediatric endocrinologists for evaluation. The majority of children who seem excessively tall or large to their parents usually have a combination of simple familial tallness and childhood obesity. (Oh, if only the SU BB team and football team mated to form natural giants... wait, that's the women's crew and rugby teams, right?)

List of well-known "giants" and lesser known g unit members under Fitty'swing:

*Martin Van Buren Bates (1837-1919)

*Anna Hannon Bates (1846-1886)

*Robert Wadlow

*Sandy Allen

Zeng Jinlian

*André the Giant

*Radhouane Charbib

*Leonid Stadnyk

*Hussain Bisad

*Ri Myong-hun

*All of Ariana's ex boyfriends, apparently!!

I hope this email wastes almost as much time in your un-busy lives as it did in mine. Don't you just feel smarter already? I KNOW I do!
PS: next dinner party convo: We will be discussing in great detail the key differences in midgets vs. dwarfs vs. little people... just because we should not FEAR them, we should EMBRACE them! ahem, ####!