Reading a review article about the important roles of the amino acid, leucine, revived an old question about whether amino acids, in addition to being the simple building blocks of proteins and thus serving as nutrition, may have medicinal value therapeutically. Vianna Stibal has said that for every malady there is an amino acid in nature that will cure it. Is that a true statement? If so, can that be applied practically?

It is close to the truth, if not 100% accurate for all situations. This does not mean one can dispense with all other tools and approaches, and simply obtain a treasure chest of pure amino acids as a collection of silver bullets, so to speak. This sweeping statement you cite is somewhat akin to pointing to the periodic table to say that everything in the universe is comprised of a small number of discrete atomic substances, each with a unique composition and which can combine together to make things happen. But just knowing what atoms exist does not provide a way to create a universe. The physical matter, being a form of energy, needs shaping by consciousness, among other things, and that will comprise many intricate and complex maneuvers. It will be dependent on considerable information known by the creator wanting to use those building blocks effectively. So just knowing this concept, that the amino acids are a set of key potentials for regulating life forms, is simply a superficial and quite simplistic understanding of all that can happen. This is, inherently, a divine clue and therein lies the rub. We cannot give you details as that would be leading. But there are useful questions you might pose regarding many situations and many of the working details of body chemistry, for example. So it will indeed be possible to tease apart some of the workings and get enough feedback to mount a meaningful exploration of possibilities and arrive at useful applications. As with all important phenomena that are a part of the big picture, some things will be more approachable than others, so as to pay off more quickly with progress of some kind that is useful. But there is not a Rosetta Stone, so to speak, that would give you a key to translating and understanding nature to define all of its component parts, their potentials modes of interaction, and mechanistic roles. All of that knowledge will be hard-won from human exploration of the universe and its workings. The problem, as you know scientifically, is knowing where and when a particular amino acid is most needed, and there will often need to be a kind of symphonic combining of amino acid players working in concert, in needed amounts and in a proper sequence, to bring about the needed physiologic changes in a stepwise fashion, to restore impaired capabilities biochemically, in the body. So the problem is far more complex than that simple notion would suggest, but it does provide a powerful clue that you are on the right track in pursuing natural substances of all kinds to explore their properties and exploit any that are beneficial. Many will, in fact, be useful because they indeed rearrange the physiologic regulation in a way dependent on various amino acid constituents as triggers to bring about a readjustment, a rebalancing or restoration of function.