The incredible story of seven-year-old Alamjan from Kazakhstan who underwent surgery for a distended stomach that was making him look pregnant. What the doctors discovered inside was reported around the world - Alamjan's own twin was growing inside of him. Known literally as 'a baby inside a baby', the condition is very rare, but its examination leads to insight that a life and death struggle for survival takes place between all twins when they are in the womb.

The chances of being bitten by a shark are 80 million to one. So what does that make the odds of it being caught on film?! This incredible documentary features and analyses not one but two such episodes, examining them forensically to show exactly what prompts such attacks and how, in the future, it may be possible to stop them. Eric, the shark expert behind this programme, is well placed to give his opinion - he filmed one of the bites himself. In fact, it was him that was bitten...

China's 'Elephant Man', Huang Chuncai, tells his own shocking story as he undergoes surgery to remove life-threatening tumours weighing 20kg that have caused him a lifetime of suffering. As a small child, Huang developed a small facial swelling. Now 31, his features have been destroyed and his body wracked by the tumours, which make up half his body weight. Bodyshock follows Huang as he travels to one of China's leading cancer hospitals for the surgery that he hopes will allow him to live a normal life, but which also carries terrible risks.

No description available

No description available

No overview found.

No overview found.

In the Romanian province of Transylvania, Lucica Bunghez is being eaten alive, consumed by an 11-stone tumour growing out of her back. Eventually, it will kill her. Lucica suffers from neurofibromatosis (Nf), a genetic disorder that makes the body spontaneously produce benign tumours, and doctors don't dare operate on a tumour that has reached this size. Only one man can help her. Dr McKay McKinnon, at the University of Chicago Hospital, is a world expert at removing large tumours, and Lucica has sent a desperate plea for him to see if he can save her.

No overview found.

With her legs fused together like a tail, Milagros Cerron has one of the rarest birth abnormalities in the world: sirenomelia, or 'mermaid syndrome'. Can an operation by charismatic but controversial plastic surgeon Dr Luis Rubio, to be broadcast live on national television, save this little Peruvian girl? The story of the operation and the attendant media circus is a revealing look at what happens when medicine, politics, religion and superstition collide in a poor and struggling country.

A Swiss doctor discovered these tiny, fragile children in a remote Indian village in 2003. Their bones were dissolving and their hair thining and he diagnosed them with progeria, a rare disease that uncontrollably accelerates its sufferers into old age. Even relative to what is already known about the disease, the children remain a medical mystery. One mother had given birth to five children who had been affected, despite an established average of one sufferer in every 4 million births.

Manar Maged was born with two heads. The second has a brain, but no body. Despite this, the second head shows signs of independent consciousness - blinking, smiling, crying. It even tries to suckle. Worringly, Manar's second head is also a parasite and is slowly killing her. This condition, called craniopagus parasiticus, has only been recorded 10 times in medical history. Neurosurgeon Professor Lotvi has pioneered a technique to prevent the bleeding common in surgery on twins conjoined at the head. Bodyshock details the operation needed to save Manar's life.

No overview found.

No description available

At just seven years old Dzhambulat Khatokhov ('Jambik' for short) is four foot three inches tall and weighs 16 stone - as much as a baby elephant. He dwarfs his older brother who is twice his age and less than half his weight. Nobody knows why Jambik is so big, or what this means for his long-term health. But Dr Campbell - one of the world's leading experts on obesity - is determined to find out. Travelling over 2000 miles to the Caucasus Mountains in Southern Russia, Campbell meets the 'biggest boy in the world' to see what, if anything, can be done for him...

Nineteen-year-old Billy Robbins weighs 60 stone and is reported to be the world's heaviest teenager. He has spent the past three years living in a chair as his mother cooks for, cleans and feeds him. But Billy has made the decision to turn his life around in the hope that one day he may be able to move out of his mother's home. Billy realises that after being fed up to 8,000 calories a day, he has to change his diet not only in order to gain his own independence from his mother, but if he is to live into his twenties. The seriousness of his condition is confirmed by Billy's doctor, Dr Nowzaradan, who tells him that the strain on Billy's heart is now critical. He must begin the slow and torturous route to a target weight of just over 14 stone - undergoing a possible seven operations in the process. This astonishing story also revolves around Billy's relationship with his mother and the co-dependency that seems to exist between them.

Half Ton Mum tells the story of the world's heaviest woman, Renee Williams, a 64-stone, 29-year-old mother of two who, in a desperate bid to lose enough weight to save her life, undergoes life-threatening surgery. Renee, who has realised she wants to be around long enough to see her two daughters grow up, hopes her story will help change the lives of the estimated 2 million Americans who weigh more than 40 stone.

In her home town of Nagpur in India, 16-year-old Jyoti Amge is a normal teenager in many ways: she enjoys going to school and socialising with friends, and dreams of dancing in Bollywood movies. But Jyoti is only one foot and eleven inches tall, and will never grow any taller, crippled by brittle bones. This Bodyshock special meets this extraordinary girl to discover her story and explore what her future holds. When Jyoti's mother, Ranjana, who had four healthy children already, became pregnant, she instinctively knew that something was wrong, and even up until the full nine months, baby Jyoti could not be seen on the medical scans. Doctors were in shock when she was finally delivered at 10 months, weighing just over three pounds. The Amge family, devout Hindus, saw Jyoti's birth and survival as a miracle that deepened their faith. Ranjana, and Jyoti's father, Kishanji, meet with senior orthopaedic surgeon Dr Ram Soni, who believes he can mend her fractured legs and help her walk without pain. He is also keen to be the first to diagnose Jyoti's probable condition for certain as pituitary dwarfism, where the body severely lacks the necessary growth hormones from the pituitary gland. The only solution is a high-risk operation to realign her bones and insert metal rods to hold them in place. Jyoti's parents understand that this could change her life, but are extremely concerned about the shock to her body and how much she would suffer. The family turn to their faith to help battle their fears, taking Jyoti to a highly revered guru and also to a renowned healer, in hope of spiritual guidance and an alternative solution. Torn between the desire to repair Jyoti's legs and also avoid further damage to her, can they move forward with the modern treatment offered by Dr Soni?

Forty-year-old American father of four Kenneth Brumley weighed 73 stone when he was cut free from his house. Even bigger than Half Ton Mum, Renee, from the Bodyshock documentary of that name, Kenneth's last chance was to undergo the same weight-loss surgery that she had. Sadly, it did not work for Renee - would things be more successful for Kenneth? Half Ton Dad is the story of a father, his family and a country which currently has 15 million morbidly obese citizens.

This Bodyshock Special features 13-year-old Twinkle Dwivedi who, for nearly two years, has inexplicably cried tears of blood. The spontaneous bleeding, which happens almost daily, also comes from her head, hands and feet. The programme follows Twinkle and her mother as they travel from their home in northern India to explore the cause of her extraordinary condition, visiting a Catholic Bishop to ask whether her bleeding is stigmata, bathing in the Ganges and visiting an alternative medicine centre. But when a world expert on blood disorders flies in to examine her, Twinkle's journey of discovery edges closer to some uncomfortable possibilities.

Bodyshock revisits Lakshmi Tatma, the girl who was born with eight limbs, a year after she underwent a life-saving operation to remove her half-formed conjoined twin's arms and legs. When Lakshmi was born with four arms and four legs, she was immediately worshipped by her parents and others in their poverty-stricken village as the reincarnation of Lakshmi, the eight-legged goddess of prosperity and wealth. But they faced a dilemma: only a groundbreaking operation to remove the conjoined twin's limbs could save their daughter's life, but the same gruelling procedure might easily kill her. In a modern hospital in Bangalore, which seems a million miles from their hut in the village and the superstitions of their religion, they agreed for their daughter to undergo the 18-hour operation. A year later, she has not only survived but flourished. This Bodyshock Special finds out how Lakshmi, who is now three, is developing, and what further operations and treatment she still needs to develop as normally as possible. The programme also returns with her to her village, where some believe the worst droughts in 50 years were caused by the operation, which they believe removed Lakshmi's goddess powers to protect them from disasters.

China's 'Elephant Man', Huang Chuncai, tells his own shocking story as he undergoes surgery to remove life-threatening tumours weighing 20kg that have caused him a lifetime of suffering. As a small child, Huang developed a small facial swelling. Now 31, his features have been destroyed and his body wracked by the tumours, which make up half his body weight. Bodyshock follows Huang as he travels to one of China's leading cancer hospitals for the surgery that he hopes will allow him to live a normal life, but which also carries terrible risks.

Shiloh Pepin, from Maine, USA, was born with Sirenomelia or 'mermaid syndrome': an extremely rare congenital disease meaning her legs were fused together below the hips. She was born without a rectum or genitals, almost no large intestine and just a small piece of her kidney. Shiloh was given just days to live. Knowing her life could be cut short at any moment, her parents, Leslie and Elmer, devoted their lives to caring for her. Against all odds she survived and in 2009 she celebrated her tenth birthday, a milestone doctors said she would never reach. Filmed over six months that would change her family's lives forever, this is the unforgettable story of an ordinary family living with an extraordinary condition.

Three-year-old twins Krista and Tatiana Hogan are conjoined at the head. It is usual to carry out separation surgery on conjoined twins as early as possible, but Krista and Tatiana can never be separated. Bodyshock presents a rare and moving portrait of a family determined to keep their twins together and give them a fulfilling life. The filmmakers follow the family as the girls make progress through one of the most difficult years of their lives, and have unexpectedly positive effects on the rest of the family. Most poignantly, doctors finally discover whether these extraordinary little girls can see through each other's eyes, as their mother believes.

Thirty-one-year-old Tanya Angus from Nevada in the USA, who was once a pretty and popular young woman, now stands at 6ft 8ins and weighs almost 32 stone. Tanya is already one of the tallest and heaviest women on the planet. Alarmingly, she is still growing, and lives in agonising pain. Now doctors say she is the only woman in the world whose growth cannot be halted by medication. This Bodyshock special follows Tanya's extraordinary journey as she struggles to come to terms with her unstoppable growth and joins the world's leading doctors in a race against time to ultimately save her life. Acromegalic Gigantism is an extremely rare condition that causes the body to grow to massive proportions, a condition that can transform anyone into a real-life giant. With unprecedented access to other Acromegaly sufferers, Bodyshock uncovers the enormous toll this unpredictable affliction takes on the human body and shows the groundbreaking technology top neurosurgeons are utilising in the battle to stop the growth. The programme follows the astonishing lives of three people as they cope with this colossal growth, and medical experts explain the science behind this little-known yet life-threatening disease.