Andiroba wood is soft and much sought-after by sawmills. It has in the past been shipped to the United States for utilization in the furniture industry, among other uses. Its durability and impalatability for insects have guaranteed commercial demand for the wood , and as a result the species has in the past been rapidly devastated in all areas near major towns in Amazonia. It could, however, be easily cultivated either in the Amazon or other regions of Brazil.

Average nut yield is about 200 kilos of nuts per tree. The nuts contain seeds with an oil content averaging 63%. Some 6.25 kilos of nuts are required to produce a kilo of Andiroba oil using the traditional extraction method. This traditional method is efficient, if somewhat primitive. The seeds are collected from rivers where they float after being shed by tree. They are then boiled and left for some two weeks until they have rotted. They are then squeezed in a primitive press known as a tipiti to extract oil and sometimes fatty solids. One consequence of this extraction method is that crude Andiroba oil is frequently associated with a red coloring which is derived from the skin of the seeds. Because the oil becomes rancid very quickly, requiring rapid use, local usage is mostly limited to immediate use or the manufacture of soap.

The tree bark, leaves and the seed oil of Andiroba are most used medicinally. The Munduruku indigenous people traditionally used Andiroba oil for the mummification of human heads taken as war trophies. Indians have also use the oil as a solvent for extracting the plant colorants with which they paint their skin. In addition to using the oil for illumination, traditional forest-dwellers and river people (caboclos) make a medicinal soap using crude Andiroba oil, wood ash and cocoa skin residue. This soap is especially recommended for the treatment of skin diseases and as an insect repellent.

Among the many properties attributed to Andiroba oil by ethnopharmacological research, its anti-inflammatory qualities when applied to painful swellings and its use as an anti-rheumatic are the most important. The oil is also used as an insect repellent and for treating both insect bites and skin diseases. Information has recently been collected on the use of Andiroba oil in gelatine capsules in the treatment of internal cancers in Brazil. The indigenous tribes of Northwest Amazonia brew the bark, and sometimes leaves, into a febrifugal and vermifugal tea and also apply this tea externally as a wash for ulcers and skin problems. James Duke reports that this same bark infusion may be useful in herpes and that the Wayapi and Palikur tribes as well as the Creoles use the fruit oil to remove ticks and parasites from their heads, and that Native Americans trust the oil as an emollient and anti-inflammatory for skin rashes. Brazilians currently use the oil in soaps and sell the oil as a anti-inflammatory and antiarthritic. The fruit oil is also ingested in Brazil for coughs. Curanderos in the Peruvian Amazon use the leaves of Andiroba in baths for skin irritations and itching as well as use the oil for massages for muscle pain and for skin disorders.

Andiroba oil is used by Brazilian city dwellers either pure or mixed with other fatty oils or natural products and applied externally to wounds and bruises and use it as a massage oil, especially by martial arts practitioners and massage therapists. It is also applied to areas affected by skin diseases, psoriasis, to sore feet or, when mixed with camphor, to the whole body in the case of a severe cold. In Brazil, one quarter of a cabacinha (the fruit of Luffa operculata) is macerated in 250 ml of hot Andiroba oil to yield an infusion which is rubbed into the skin to relieve arthritis and rheumatism, and to cauterize wounds. Andiroba oil is also applied directly to dog's skins to treat wounds and relieve itchy skin conditions caused by tick bites. Andiroba oil has even been rubbed into other wood and furniture to protect it from insects.

The oil composition is mostly represented by myristic and oleic acids, and to a lesser extent, palmitic and linoleic acids. Andiroba oil is believed to have antiseptic qualities and is used to sooth the pain of small cuts and skin lesions. Today, Andiroba oil is regarded as an excellent topical anti- inflammatory and cicatrizant and is used in various hair care products, adding silk and shine to the hair. The active principles of Andiroba oil have been separated using solvent extraction, column chromatography, HPLC and vacuum distillation. Fractions and pure substances have been submitted to pharmacological assays in order to demonstrate their anti-inflammatory effects and other properties. Recent tests of crude Andiroba oil by Brazilian pharmacologists have produced evidence of its anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties. The anti-inflammatory properties of Andiroba oil are probably due to the presence of limmonoids (non-saponifiable fraction) which are soluble in the unsaturated fraction of the oil. Andiroba oil is rich in stearine and other unsaturated fatty acids (see Table 1). Unsaponifiable matter is up between 2 and 5% and low free fatty acids content is up to 0.99%. It yields up to 65% in unsaturated fatty acids such as linoleic acid, which is currently being studied by Japanese cosmetology researchers. The unsaponifiable substances contained in the oil are mostly limmonoids and triterpenes which have shown to be biologically active as anti-inflammatory agents. The oil is rich in the limmonoid alkaloid, andirobin. Phytochemical studies have identified the presence of seven limmonoids.

A U.S. patent was filed in 1999 which describes that the lipids in Andiroba possesses an inhibitory effect on glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase and, moreover, an inhibitory effect on adipocyte conversion, thereby making it an effective treatment for cellulite.

References/Footnotes:

• Gentry, Alwyn, 1993, Woody Plants of Northwest South America (Columbia, Ecuador, Peru).
• Correa, Pio (1984). Dicionario de Plantas Uteis do Brasil e Exoticas Cultivadas Vols 1-6, Brasilia: IBDF.
• Mors, W.B. and Rissine, C.T., 1966. Useful Plants of Brazil, Holden-Day, Inc., San Francisco
• Morton, J. F. 1981. Atlas of Medicinal Plants of Middle America. Illinois: Charles C. Thomas
• Van den Berg, E. 1983. Plantas Medicinais na Amazonia. Belem: Museu Goeldi.
• Schultes, R.E., and Raffauf, 1990. The Healing Forest. Medicinal and Toxic Plants of the Northwesy Amazonia, R.F. Dioscorides Press, 1990.
• Duke, James and Vasquez, Rudolfo, 1994 Amazonian Ethnobotanical Dictionary, CRC Press Inc., Boca Raton, FL
• Vasquez, M. R., 1990 Useful Plants of Amazonian Peru. Second Draft. Filed with USDA's National Agricultural Library.
• Branch, L.C. and da Silva, I.M.F. 1983. "Folk Medicine of Alter do Chao, Para, Brazil." Acta Amazonica 13(5/6):737-797. Manaus.
• Morton, J.F., 1981. Atlas of Medicinal Plants of Middle America, Bahamas to Yucatan, C.C.Thomas, Publisher, Springfield, IL.
• Pereira Pinto, G. (1956). "O Oleo de Andiroba" in Boletin Tecnico, Instituto Agronomico Norte 31, 119
• Soukup, J., 1970. Vocabulary of the Common Names of the Peruvian Flora and Catalog of the Genera. Editorial Salesiano, Lima. pp 436.
• Ollis, W. et al. (1970) in Tetrahedon 26, 1637.
• Lavie, D. et al. (1972) in Bioorganic Chemistry 2, 59
• Marcelle, G.B. et al. (1975) in Phytochemistry 14, 2717.
• Beckstrom-Sternberg, Stephen; Duke, James; Ethnobotany Database, USDA
• Hammer ML, et al. Tapping an Amazônian plethora: four medicinal plants of Marajó Island, Pará (Brazil). J Ethnopharmacol, 1993 Sep
• Leslie Taylor, Personal field notes with Curandero Jose Guerra Cabrerra near the village of Tam Hisaco. September, 1997
• Rouillard , et al. Cosmetic or pharmaceutical composition containing an andiroba extract. United States Patent 5,958,421 September 28, 1999