Medical Questions » Glands Questions » Question No. 424
| Question: | My brother in England has just had an uncancerous (sic) bit taken out of his pituitary gland in his head. Where is the pituitary gland in the head, and what does it do? |
| Answer: | This vital gland is situated in the very centre of your head. If you place your finger tip mid way between your eyebrows, the pituitary gland is about 9 cm inside the skull from that point.
Glands are organs that produce vital hormones that control many of the bodily functions. The testes and ovaries are glands that produce sex hormones; the thyroid gland produces a hormone that controls rhe body' s metabolic rate; the adrenal gland produces adrenaline, which acts on the atteries, and so on.
The many glands of the body are in turn controlled by the pituitary gland, which produces chemicals that travel through the bloodstream to tell the other glands when to switch on and off their hormone production. The pituitary gland is therefore the conductor of the gland orchestra within the body, and depending on which hormones it detects in the bloodstream, it will stimulate or suppress the appropriate gland. The pituitary itself is controlled by nerves from the brain.
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