IF THE gym seems like too much effort and plastic surgery does not appeal, help is at hand: a Japanese company is marketing a breast-enhancing chewing gum.

Despite the price — about £10 for a pot of 200 pink tablets — Bust-Up gum has been an instant hit with Tokyo women.The company that makes it has received thousands of orders and plans to start selling the gum from convenience stores.

As well as claiming that its product offers women astonishing lifting powers, the scientists at B2Up say that the rose- flavoured gum, when chewed three or four times a day, will also fight ageing, improve circulation and reduce stress.

Bust-Up attributes its powers to the slow release of dietary supplements, of which pueraria mirifica appears to be the most active. “Unlike dietary supplements taken in a pill once a day, the gum means that it is constantly bombarding your system and restoring the muscle tissue that keeps breasts healthy,” a B2Up spokeswoman said. “And it smells nice on the breath.”

Bust-Up was one of the biggest hits at the Tokyo Health Fair, a huge event designed to cash in on the nation’s obsession with health and the willingness of Japanese to spend big money on products and gadgets that purport to keep them young and beautiful.

The double effect of an ageing society and the growing affluence of women in their twenties has created a supplement and health-improvement industry worth about £5 billion a year. One stand at the health fair offered the essence of a foul-smelling Polynesian gourd that supposedly has restorative effects on the hair. Tiny bottles sold for nearly £350.

Another company introduced a range of bar snacks coated with volcanic rock powder that, it was claimed, will cleanse your bowels and go nicely with a pint. There were plenty of variations on that theme, including Café Colon, a canned ice-coffee drink that claims to be the equal of a professionally administered enema.

The star attraction of the show was the Shenpix home oxygen tent, which looks like an inflated sleeping bag and encloses its occupant in an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

Potential buyers gazed at before-and-after photographs of women whose beauty was supposedly enhanced by the product. Ryoko Saito, the proprietor of Bien beauty clinic in North Tokyo, said the important message from the health fair was that oxygen is good for you. “These days, oxygen is what all our customers ask us about when they come to the clinic.”

She added: “We have a few machines that are very popular, but they are getting a little old and people want something more elaborate. Everyone can afford to be Michael Jackson now.”

For those lacking the space for a tent, £2,000 bought an Oxycubeleo, an elegant oxygen dispenser with a six-litre capacity designed to sit on a bedside table and blend with even the classiest furniture while pumping out a 30 per cent oxygen mix throughout the night.

Other gadgets, such as a South Korean company’s collapsible massage hula-hoop, came with even less proof of their health-giving effects. The Miracle Sound Box, costing £250, comes with a special set of headphones and offers to massage the user’s brain by blasting a series of discordant noises into both ears.

Several companies were touting the youth-giving effects of necklaces made from rocks gathered in a sulphurous bog, while others claimed that the secret of longevity lay in daily doses of fish collagen.

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