Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Ajonjolí is the Spanish name for sesame, the seed of the plant Sesamum indicum. It is a food first. The seeds, the pressed oil and the ground paste are used daily in Latin American kitchens.
The same seed has a second life as a home remedy. Families have used the oil on dry skin and hair. Others have used the seeds for hard stools, for coughs, or to support milk supply while breastfeeding.
Here is the short verdict. As a food, sesame is nutritious and well described. As a remedy, the human evidence is thin and mixed.
The best signal so far is a small effect on blood pressure and blood fats in short trials. Long traditional use is not proof that something works. It is also not proof that it is safe for everyone.
That last point matters here. Sesame is one of the world's major food allergens. For a person with that allergy, even a trace can cause a severe reaction.
Most of the proposed mechanisms come from the laboratory, not from people.
Sesame seeds contain lignans called sesamin and sesamolin. In test tubes and in animals, these appear to act as antioxidants. They also appear to change how the liver handles fats in animal studies.
Whether that happens in your body at food amounts is not established.
The seeds also carry plant sterols. In cell and animal work, these appear to block some cholesterol from being absorbed in the gut. A few small human trials have reported slightly lower LDL ("bad") cholesterol after regular sesame intake.
For constipation, the idea is simpler and more plausible. Whole seeds add fibre, and the oil adds fat. Both can make stool easier to pass, though this has not been tested well in trials.
For skin and hair, sesame oil is mainly an emollient. That means it sits on the surface and slows water loss. That is a physical effect, not a drug effect.
Some lab tests show sesame extracts slowing certain bacteria. Nobody has shown that this treats an infection in a person. Treat all of these as ideas under test, not as settled facts.
Ajonjolí is sold in everyday food forms and in a few supplement forms.
Common food forms:
- Whole seeds, hulled or unhulled, raw or toasted. - Sesame oil, cold pressed or toasted. - Sesame paste (pasta de ajonjolí) and tahini.
- Horchata de ajonjolí, a sweet seed drink. - Sweets such as palanquetas and alegrías. - Ground into mole and other sauces.
- Gomasio, a seed and salt sprinkle.
Supplement forms:
- Sesamin capsules and softgels. - Sesame oil capsules. - Sesame protein or seed flour.
For skin and hair, people use plain sesame oil, sometimes warmed. Massage oils in some traditions use it as the base oil.
One practical note on buying. Toasted oil is for flavour and burns easily.
Plain oil handles heat better. Neither version is a medicine, whatever the label suggests.
Sesame is one of the oldest oilseed crops known. It was grown in Africa and South Asia thousands of years ago.
The seed reached the Americas in the 1500s and 1600s. It travelled with Spanish and Portuguese trade and with enslaved West Africans, who knew it as benne. It took hold fast in Mexico, Guatemala, Venezuela, Colombia and the Caribbean.
In Mexico it became a signature of mole sauces and of sweets such as palanquetas. In Venezuela and the Dominican Republic the ground seed became a cold drink.
Home remedy use ran alongside the cooking. Curanderas and home healers recorded several uses:
- Seeds or seed drinks for hard, dry stools. - Seed drinks given to nursing mothers to support milk. - Warm oil rubbed on dry skin, scalp or aching joints.
- Oil or crushed seed applied to minor burns and chapped skin. - Seed preparations taken for dry coughs.
These uses were passed on by family and by local healers. They were written down by folk medicine collectors much later. None of them were tested in a trial at the time.
Call emergency services at once if you get swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, trouble breathing, wheezing, a sudden widespread rash, vomiting with faintness, or you collapse after eating sesame. These are signs of anaphylaxis (a severe, whole-body allergic reaction), and it can kill.
Use your adrenaline auto-injector first if you have one.
See a doctor, less urgently, if you get a rash after using the oil, ongoing stomach pain or diarrhoea, or if you were using sesame for constipation and your bowel habit has changed and stayed changed.
Also see a doctor if you feel dizzy or faint on standing after adding sesame while taking blood pressure medicine.
Sesame is an ordinary food worldwide, not a licensed medicine. In the United States it has been a major labelled allergen since 2023, and the European Union has required allergen labelling for years. Sesamin supplements are sold as food supplements and may not be marketed as treating any disease.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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