Photos: What caused UAE man to balloon to 270kgs

A 36-year-old Emirati whose weight has uncontrollably ballooned to 270kg since 2007 is arduously battling a rare condition which remained undiagnosed for four years as no imaging machine in the world could accommodate a man of his size.

Father of two Ahmad Ali, who works for a Dubai government department, told XPRESS: "The past seven years have been hell. I weighed 95kg and led a healthy, normal life. But suddenly in 2007, I started gaining weight although my diet was the same.
"When it reached 160kg in four months, local doctors suspected a dysfunction of the pea-size pituitary gland at the base of the brain responsible for growth and hormonal balance. They wanted to put me under an MRI or magnetic resonance imaging scanner to arrive at the diagnosis."
But in what compounded his problem, he could not go through an MRI machine as its maximum capacity - anywhere in the world - is just 150kg.
Ali said: "I was asked to go on a diet so I could bring my weight down to this figure but I couldn't achieve it. Instead, my weight increased to 170kg over the next three months."
He said over the next three years his weight reached 270 kg at which point the local doctors sent him to Germany. "I was referred to a specialist who put me on a rigorous rehab programme. I stayed there for seven months and my weight came down to 145kg. So an MRI scan was finally done and a benign tumour was found on my pituitary gland."
He said he was put on medication to treat the tumour and was operated upon to remove an additional 10kg of fat waist down. "Satisfied with my progress, the German doctor sent me back to the UAE asking me to continue the medication that would keep the hormone levels stable."