In the 50's they built more elementary schools to serve the Baby Boomers; in the 60's high schools, and now forty-some years later, we're nearing retirement age in aging bodies. Gross makes a big deal about how much the nutritional supplement business is growing, when it may only be due to demographics. After all, the boomers followed the smallest cohort in American history (relatively speaking) -- the Silent generation (1925-1945).

So, there may not necessarily be a greater percentage of people gobbling down supplements; it may all be due to the simple swelling of the market with more potential customers.

Hey, I'm going to have a total hip replacement in January, but I'm taking Glucosamine/Chondroitin supplements on the off chance it will maintain the cartilege in my right hip. The benefits of doing so may be marginal, but buy-one-get-one free specials at CVS make it worth the possibility. This has nothing to do with a fad and everything to do with looming geezerdom.

January, huh? You didn't say when you announced your upcoming upgrade. We probably missed realizing that this is your busy season coming up. Do you have one of those pulpits with the winding staircase? Can you negotiate it?

My wife and I have been taking the joint supplements for years. Her pain doctor (yeah, he's a real MD and surgeon) had suggested it, but I don't know on what basis. I don't know whether it helps or not, but our family doctor, her rheumatologist, and her cardiologist are all aware she is taking them and none have suggested she stop.

We all take it but don't know if it works or how well.

Govt treats it like three weirdo hippie communists take the stuff under advice of terrorist psychos. Then MDs make believe they know nothing on the premise that silence enhances the overpowering placebo effect. "Orthodox" MDs ignore the widespread advice from Oz, Weil, et al. And somehow nobody has done X-rays to see if it works --UNLESS you look up NIH documents.

Clearly, some kind of cabal is at work where the facts are so simple to settle. It's just that the money prevents us from finding out officially, which benefits docs and drug companies.

The end-result is that old Tessie swallows three hot coals when HER doctor says TWO; but Tillie's doctor gave her Enbrel and she got better for a week and then came down with reflux and got Nexium and needs back operations and took Voltaren and got dementia and is seeing a neurologist for Aricept and Effexor....

they are the wal mart of funerals.

they've been buying up mom and pop funeral stores, and standardizing them.

if you believe that no amount of obamacare can prevent baby boomers from dying, and that "end of life counselling" will - to some degree - encourage people to roll over and give up, then you should be buying SCI shares.

disclaimer - BA owns no SCI shares. consensus says that the price per share will rise from $6.75 (today) to $9 in the next 12 months.

If the "consensus" said any such thing, dimwit, the price would already be at 9.

on the basis of your theory, all stocks would be at their peak value forever and ever, without any rise and fall.

rethink your logic