Can a pill enhance breasts?

It's one of those health supplements that induce incredulous cackles when mentioned - a nutritional pill, tested on cows, which its makers claim will firm your saggy bits and give you a better bust. With even more people looking for a little extra help to perfect their figure - and being put off by the dangers and expense of going under the knife - it could be the perfect answer. But how effective is it really?

To be honest, when I first heard about this new supplement, I was very sceptical. Firstly, it contains hops, which are not something I had associated with healthy skin, and I learned it was once used to help make cows' udders grow. Not terribly enticing.

But, after spending 20 years desperately trying to hold back the sands of time, I thought it might be worth a go. If it works on cows' udders, why not for me too? I've tried just about everything to improve my chest - even surgery - and no method has had the desired effect.

So, when I was offered a free trial course of Erdic, this plant-based supplement that claims to enlarge breast cup size, firm and perk up the decollete, I jumped at the chance. Okay, I turned 50 last year, but like any woman, I still want to look my best whenever I set foot outside my home in West Kensington. And I had nothing to lose as, until that point, I had pretty much resigned myself to letting nature takes its southerly course.

At least this method was non-invasive. I had breast implants when I started modelling at 19 and they were disastrous. At that time I was a 34A and needed to have fuller, sexier breasts to help get ahead in my career. That was 30 years ago and I had the original silicone implants which, as I later discovered, caused problems. After only months, I found that both breasts felt uncomfortable and solid scar tissue had hardened around the implants. This is called encapsulation.

For as long as I could stand it, I persevered. But although I liked the idea of having bigger boobs, I was tiny - only seven-and-a-half stone - and I started thinking that they looked unnaturally large. I also didn't like the fact that my cleavage never looked good because the breasts were pushed together. I hated my boobs staying rigidly upright when I was lying on my back. I had the implants taken out when I was 24, having had the first pair replaced but they, too, hardened and somehow never seemed right for my body.

I didn't bother with anything after that except for padded bras, but when I reached 40, I started finding lumps in my breasts. I became hysterical and immediately went to see a breast-cancer specialist. He reassured me that the lumps were not malignant, they were actually bits of silicone that had leaked and formed solid deposits, and I had them all removed. But it was very frightening to know that these lumps had been caused by leakage.

Then, after my daughter Jade was born 11 years ago, I caught sight of myself in a mirror in a white, flimsy dress, wearing no bra. I was appalled by my appearance. My breasts were so droopy I decided to become a respectable mum and wear support at all times.

In despair at my breasts' sagginess I then tried outplants. They were hopeless. They looked like chicken fillets, and I only wore them a few times as I decided they were a most peculiar shape. Several months later, when I was clearing out my underwear drawer, I found one of them had a huge hole in the nipple area, as if a giant plastic-eating moth had been in there.

Then I tried lots of bust-firming creams which tingled encouragingly, but did nothing else. Then last year, just before my partner Jeremy Neville and I got married, I found out about this new supplement, called Erdic. I looked into what these pills contained very carefully and was interested that the ingredients were totally natural - the formula is based on extracts of hops, buckwheat, fennel, rye, malt and barley. These ingredients contain plant hormones, and phytoestrogens, which apparently stimulate the glandular tissue in the breasts to mimic the same changes one gets during pregnancy. So, in effect, the breasts should become fuller, firmer and larger.

The course is expensive - £450 - so to see if it was worth others spending the money, I was willing to be a guinea pig. The tablets are pretty large, but easy to swallow. However, if you bite them by mistake, they taste appalling. They also smell nasty. You have to take them for six months - 10 a day - and drink two litres of water a day. Three months into the programme, nothing had happened.

However, I persevered, and within the following three months I could feel my breasts becoming firmer, and then more full. By the end of the course I was a much fuller-sized C-cup, having been a 36B before. I have to say that I was pretty amazed, my boobs were looking great.

Jeremy calls them my "weapons of mass destruction" and they were just as perky as when I was young.

I now take a maintenance dose of two tablets a day to keep the effect going. Frankly, I had advise anyone considering having implants to try these first, because the course is a tenth of the cost of surgery and there's no horrible silicone involved.