Carle Jasmin & Arnaud Pontin (Image AI / Gay Globe)
Here’s a little gem about a gland no one ever talks about at family dinners: the Zuckerkandl gland. Even the name sounds like a minor character in a Jules Verne novel. And yet, it’s right there, tucked somewhere between your kidneys and your belly button, right where the aorta decides to split in two to send blood down to your legs. A discreet, shy, almost ghostly little gland… with a name that would score triple points in Scrabble.
The Zuckerkandl gland is kind of the forgotten child of the human body. It’s so rare, it feels like a prank from a mischievous biologist trying to mess with med students: “Go find the Zuckerkandl gland—somewhere near the aorta… or not. Good luck.” But no joke—it actually exists, even if it’s not invited to most anatomical parties.
To be fair, it’s not really a “gland” in the traditional sense. It’s not a hormone factory like the thyroid or the adrenal glands. It’s more of a cluster of neuroendocrine cells, a sort of secret base of the sympathetic nervous system. It doesn’t produce love or intelligence, but it does churn out noradrenaline, which is still handy when trying not to faint while opening your electricity bill.
It’s named after Emil Zuckerkandl, a 19th-century Austro-Hungarian anatomist who seems to have spent a good part of his life rummaging through cadavers in search of mysterious structures. To be fair, he had a knack for spotting things no one else had seen—or wanted to. That’s how he found this tiny bundle of chromaffin cells, nestled next to the abdominal aorta. No signpost, no flashing light—just a bunch of cells quietly doing their vascular regulation thing.
At birth, the Zuckerkandl gland is quite well developed. It has volume, a clear mission, and youthful enthusiasm. It produces noradrenaline to help newborns regulate blood pressure during stressful events like childbirth or their first few hours of life. But as time goes on, it starts to think maybe all this pressure is just too much (pun absolutely intended). So, it begins to shrink. In adults, all that’s left is often just a tiny remnant—like an abandoned gas station on the Route 66 of the nervous system.
But beware, even as a miniature version of its former self, the Zuckerkandl gland can rebel. And that’s where things get less funny. Sometimes, it decides to grow a neuroendocrine tumor—a paraganglioma, for those in the know. These tumors can produce catecholamines (like adrenaline and noradrenaline) in a totally chaotic fashion, leading to a wild symphony of symptoms: sweating, palpitations, headaches, blood pressure soaring like a garden hose gone rogue… In short, when it gets mad, it doesn’t play around.
The sneakiest part? Zuckerkandl paragangliomas can go completely unnoticed for years. They’re often discovered by accident during a CT scan for something else. “Oh, you’ve got kidney stones… and a rare tumor that belongs on an episode of House, by the way.” Thank you, modern medicine.
But let’s get back to lighter things. What makes the Zuckerkandl gland so endearing is that it belongs to the noble family of vestigial organs—structures that played a crucial role at some point (usually in childhood), but later became a bit redundant. Like VHS tapes, ski boots in the basement, or your old MySpace account. It’s there, just in case. It served its purpose. Now it watches the other organs do their thing, claps politely, and asks for nothing more. A gland in peaceful retirement.
In the end, the Zuckerkandl gland is a tiny monument to biological humility. It reminds us that even the most obscure structures had their moment to shine, their reason to exist, their time to serve before fading into the background. And there’s something charming about that secret-society vibe—it’s a club only anatomists and detail nerds get into. You can even use it to impress at parties: “Oh yes, neuroendocrine systems are fascinating. Did you know the Zuckerkandl gland produces fetal noradrenaline? No? Well, I do.”
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