The world’s former fattest man is back on his feet after shedding an incredible 52 stone (728lbs) in just three years.
Juan Pedro Franco is walking with the aid of a stick after dropping from a whopping 93 stone (1302lbs) with surgery, therapy and dieting.
The 35-year-old Mexican now weighs just under 41 stone (574lbs) and has gone from being bedridden and at risk of death to being able to amble around and sit down by himself.
Juan Pedro Franco is now able to walk with the aid of a stick after several surgeries helped him lose a staggering 52-stone
Juan Pedro Franco spent nearly a decade in bed after his weight ballooned following a crippling traffic accident he suffered as a teenager and a bout of pneumonia
Specialist Jose Antonio Castaneda, who has performed his gastric bypass surgery, has been credited with playing a key part in saving Juan Pedro’s life
He told Telemundo show Al Rojo Vivo: ‘Just being able to lift up your arms and get up every day, get up for a glass of water or to go to the toilet, makes you feel great.
‘It feels fantastic to be able to move more and be more self-sufficient.’ Juan Pedro, an accomplished guitarist, spent nearly a decade in bed after his weight ballooned following a crippling traffic accident he suffered as a teenager and a bout of pneumonia.
His plight became world news in November 2016 when pictures emerged of him being transported from his home in the central Mexican city of Aguascalientes to a clinic 100 miles away in Guadalajara.
He was then thought to weigh 79 stone but doctors discovered he was nearly 15 stone heavier than they first thought.
He had appealed for help four months earlier when he announced he weighed just over 60 stone and admitted he hadn’t left his box room for six years and feared he would die after having to quit a special diet which his OAP parents couldn’t afford.
He said at the time: ‘When I was six years old I already weighed nearly 10 stone and it’s gone up and up since.
‘At 17 I weighed just over 36 stone. That was when I had an accident and broke half my body and spent a year and a half in bed.’ Three stomach reduction ops have helped transform his life and he is now awaiting new surgery to remove loose skin thought to weigh nearly 15 stone.
Specialist Jose Antonio Castaneda, who has performed his gastric bypass surgery, has been credited with playing a key part in saving Juan Pedro’s life.
Pedro Franco was so heavy he couldn’t walk, and he had to be transported to hospital using a metal zimmer frame
He is now free of the diabetes and hypertension that put him in grave danger.
Juan Pedro was dubbed the world’s fattest man by Guinness World Records in 2017.
Record-breaking compatriot Manuel Uribe, the heaviest man in the world before him, lost half his body weight with the help of doctors and nutritionists after reaching his peak weight of 94 stone.
He died in his native city of Monterrey in northern Mexico on May 26 2014 aged 48. He was 62 stone at the time.
Uribe drew worldwide attention in January 2006 when he made an emotional plea on a Mexican TV network that prompted both private and public help.
He was also featured on ‘The World’s Heaviest Man’, a 2007 television documentary about his bedridden life and attempts to overcome his obesity.
The former world’s fattest man spoke to Telemundo about his lifesaving weight loss operations
Pedro Franco with Mexican TV reporter Blanchet Valadez after his story made global headlines
Nearly 75 per cent of adults in Mexico are considered overweight or obese and the prevalence of diabetes ranks among the highest in the world.
The country recently declared a nationwide epidemiological emergency on diabetes.
The world’s heaviest man ever has been named as Jon Brower Minnoch – said to have weighed more than 100 stone when he was admitted to a US hospital in 1978. He died five years later weighing 57 stone.
A Brit who used to describe himself as the world’s fattest man begged the NHS for weight loss surgery in September after moving back to the UK from America.
Former postman Paul Mason, 59, originally from Ipswich, Suffolk, tipped the scales at 70 stone at his heaviest.
He revealed in May he was returning to Britain five years after leaving following a painful split with his fiancee.
He wrote on Facebook after announcing his decision: ‘I need to return to the UK where I will be eligible for the assistance I need to get my life back on track.
Source: Dailymail.co.uk