That is, until three years ago, when an internet search brought up a Turkish clinic that offered ‘height reduction’ surgery. Seven years earlier, he established another clinic, Wanna Be Taller, to provide leg lengthening surgery, which now performs around 80 operations a year on clients from all over the world, a quarter of them women. ‘As someone who underwent limb lengthening myself, it still feels surreal that we founded the world’s first dedicated leg shortening centre,’ he told the Daily Mail this week. As with lengthening, it takes time for things to become mainstream.’Certainly, leg lengthening surgery has become far more common in recent years. Algan says shortening surgery is ‘simpler in concept’ than lengthening surgery, but that his clinic’s doctor believes it is actually more challenging.