29-inch-tall He Pingping died from heart complications in Rome yesterday. The 21-year-old was in Italy to appear on a local television show when he complained of chest pains. He was immediately brought to the hospital and was there for over week until he passed away on March 15, 2010. His body will be returned to China once the paperwork is ready.

Pingping was the world’s shortest man according to the Guinness Book of World Records. When he was born, he was small enough to fit in the palm of his parent’s hands. While he had two sisters who developed at normal rates, he grew very slowly and was diagnosed with a bone deformity, osteogeneis imperfecta, which is a form of primordial dwarfism.

Editor-in-Chief of the Guiness Book, Craig Glenday, issued a statement about Pingping:

“He brightened up the lives of everyone he met, and was an inspiration to anyone considered different or unusual,… He was someone special. He had such a cheeky smile and mischievous personality you couldn’t help but be charmed by him.”

During a trip to New York City in September 2008, Pingping which means wine bottle, took the city by storm. We posed for photographs with a city cops and fire hydrants in Grand Central Terminal. He was officially recognized as the world’s shortest mobile adult in March 2008.

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