The amazing medical practices and techniques that we are now capable of are quite breathtaking, and perhaps one of the most telling but little considered indicators of our confidence in modern medical science is our willingness - indeed eagerness - to undergo completely unnecessary surgery.

OK, I say ‘completely unnecessary’, and this may seem slightly provocative and is in need of some clarification. Plastic surgery developed from the need to re-construct the bodies and especially the faces of people who had been disfigured as a result of accident, injury, burns or other physical misfortune. Advances in this area have led to a great many people being offered a better quality of life following injury than would have been possible just a few decades ago, and no-one would seek to argue that this is unnecessary.

At the same time, these advances and others such as keyhole surgery have led to a whole plethora of ‘cosmetic’ techniques being developed, to the extent that figuring out new surgical techniques to make a person (or at least some part of their body) look a bit nicer has become a whole branch of medicine in itself. In the sense that no-one who undergoes this kind of cosmetic surgery does so because their health depends upon it, it can be argued that it is unnecessary. We forget that until frighteningly recently, almost any kind of surgery was fraught with danger. Now we are lucky enough to submit to surgery with barely a hint of worry about the outcome.

One area that has received particular attention in cosmetic surgery is the bust, and it is now possible for any woman with a bit of money to modify her breasts in a surprising number of ways.

For those less well off and those who balk at the idea of undergoing surgery and having a permanent (if well-concealed) scar, there has always been a search for supplements and foods that can help to tone-up, firm or even enlarge the breasts.

It is thought that consuming higher than normal amounts of oestrogen and non-hormonal plant (or ‘phyto’) oestrogens can do just that. Many plants and vegetables contain small amounts of compounds that mimic human sex hormones or that stimulate the production of sex hormones. Foods such as asparagus and yams contain these phytoestrogens, and eating large quantities of them can stimulate the deposition of fat in the breasts.

Because most foods and plants only contain trace amounts of these chemicals, natural health supplements manufacturers tend to use concentrates and extracts in their breast enhancement supplements. This allows the production of supplements that are standardized to contain a certain amount (or at least range of amounts) of the active ingredients.

These breast enhancement supplements normally contain extracts of asparagus species, liquorice, barberries, abuta, cumin, fenugreek and others.