Potion to up bra size may break trade laws
No evidence to back Japanese product's claims to help women 'with flat or sagging breasts achieve a perfect chest', medical experts say
A heavily-marketed drink which promises women a "perfect heart-shaped chest" raises scientific and legal questions and could be in breach of trade description laws, experts say.
Advertisements for Push Up Drink have been plastered across the MTR in recent weeks with claims it will help women with "a flat chest [or] sagging breasts".
The Japanese-made product, marketed locally by Josephine Bust and Slimming, is said to contain "science-based ingredients" including pueraria mirifica and soybean extract, which "provide a wealth of miroestrol and deoxymiroestrol".
Pueraria mirifica has "oestrogen-like effects, but there isn't a shred of evidence that it can enlarge breasts," said Dr Harriet Hall, author of Consumer Health: A Guide to Intelligent Decisions. "Even large doses of oestrogens don't usually cause breast enlargement, and if it did, it would have dangerous side effects."
In its promotional material, Josephine Bust and Slimming cites a 2000 study by the Medicinal Plants Research Institute of Thailand's Ministry of Public Health, which looked into the effects of pueraria mirifica.
According to the study, two groups of subjects given the herb at different doses experienced some degree of mammary pain, which the study said "is related to breast firmness and may relate also to breast enlargement".