I recognize the symptoms. Separation anxiety. Empty nest syndrome. It's a no-brainer.

Now that Barry Diller's IAC/InterActiveCorp (Nasdaq: IACI) is looking to split its empire into five manageable chunks this year, it's doing everything possible to make its stand-alone interactive properties division as relevant as possible.

PaidContent.org is reporting that IAC is buying a minority stake in The HealthCentral Network, a collection of consumer health information sites. Beyond HealthCentral.com and dot-com crash and burn victim DrKoop.com, HealthCentral operates dozens of symptom-specific sites like ADHDCentral.com and ProstateCommons.com.

It's easy to see why HealthCentral is open to IAC's investment. Recent IPOs of niche-specific online portfolios like Internet Brands (Nasdaq: INET) and Dice (NYSE: DHX) have floundered. Things may be rosier on the health-care front, but HealthCentral rival WebMD (Nasdaq: WBMD) has seen its shares plummet 42% since peaking back in October.

I really like IAC's opportunistic thinking here. Even if a consortium of health sites seems like an odd fit for a company that caters to Web seekers at Ask.com and scene-sipping hipsters at Citysearch, you have to be naive to think no one has ever punched in "is this infected" into the Ask.com search engine.

High-paying advertisers flock to health sites like Pooh bears to honey jars. Whether it's holistic remedy providers or ambulance-chasing attorneys, no one is hungrier for answers than someone trying to find a cure for an affliction. Sponsors have no problem paying up to be part of the solution.

It was no surprise to see AOL co-founder Steve Case dive into this space with his Revolution Health start-up once he left Time Warner (NYSE: TWX). Even if WebMD's recent weakness shows that consumer sentiment in this niche is sickly, the long-term prognosis is the ultimate picture of health.

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