WORLD’S TALLEST WOMAN

Yao Defen, believed to be the world’s tallest woman, has begun treatment in a Shanghai hospital to rid her of a brain tumor at the root of her gigantism.

Yao, from a poor farming family in eastern China’s Anhui province, measures 2.36 meters (7 feet 7 inches), Chinese doctors say. That is (2 inches) more than Sandy Allen of the United States, who is currently listed by Guinness World Records as the world’s tallest woman.

Yao suffers from a large tumor in the pituitary gland of her brain, which has stimulated her body to release excessive amounts of growth hormone and made her bones weak, doctors say.

“I hope my bones will get better, but I’m worried that they won’t be able to cure me,” Yao told Reuters on Thursday by telephone from Ruijin Hospital. The hospital is providing her with free care.