Some of the women who come to see me for breast augmentation in New Jersey at one point explored “natural” breast enhancement. They thought that they could find a healthy, comfortable, and inexpensive solution to underdeveloped breasts, but the reality is that herbal remedies are just plain ineffective. As a doctor, I’m frustrated to see so many women disheartened by bad experiences and worse results from “natural” solutions, so I’d like to give you an overview of what these products really involve.

The Claims

First, you should know that because these products are marketed as nutritional supplements and not as medicines, they do not have to validate their claims through testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Almost all of these products claim to work by using phytoestrogens, plant-based products that can produce some effects on the body similar to the effects of estrogen. Essentially, these products are meant to trick your body into a hormonal state similar to what you would experience during pregnancy, with a resulting increase in breast size that naturally occurs before childbirth.

The Reality

The logic behind these claims is not entirely sound because every woman’s chemistry is a little different, but also because they contradict the ways phytoestrogens typically work. Some important points:

• Phytoestrogens are much weaker than estrogen produced by the body (about 0.1% as strong as normal estrogen).
• They have important medical uses, in particular to interfere with the body’s own estrogen. By substituting for a few of estrogen’s functions, they can prevent you from producing new estrogen. This is helpful for some medical conditions but not for enhancing breast size.
• They have undergone only limited clinical trials, and even in those have consistently failed to demonstrate breast augmentation properties.
• They often have negative side effects.

Other “breast augmentation pills” claim to stimulate progesterone, and while the logic behind these products may be slightly more sound, they do not actually contain progesterone or similarly functioning substances.

The Results

In studies looking at how these products could enhance breast size, phytoestrogens have consistently failed to show any breast-enhancing effects.
Even “positive” reviews suggest a gain of only 1 or 1/2 inch, accompanied by the kind of breast soreness most women experience only during menstruation. Most women will experience no change, except for weight gain, hair loss, or loss of breast volume. Positive effects tend to disappear, and negative effects persist, when you halt treatment.

In the end, the price tag for these herbal enhancers can easily outweigh the cost of the average breast implant surgery in New Jersey. As with all the procedures I perform, I strongly encourage women interested in increasing their breast size to speak with other women who have chosen breast enhancement. New Jersey women usually find that spending a little time exploring these claims is better than wasting money, time, and hope on false promises.