Elle Macpherson's cancer scare

Supermodel Elle Macpherson. Photo / Janna Dixon

When Elle Macpherson launched a high-end diet supplement last year, it seemed a natural move for a woman who, at 51, still maintains the sculpted bikini figure that earned her the nickname 'The Body'.

But now the Australian supermodel has revealed that her business venture was inspired by a personal health scare - when she found a lump on her breast on her 49th birthday.

Speaking about the incident for the first time in an interview with The Mail on Sunday's You magazine, the mother of two said the alarm made her change her attitude to health.

Supermodel Elle Macpherson. Photo / Getty Images

"I thought I had cancer," she says. "I was away shooting Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model, so I couldn't see my doctor and I was really panicking. It was four weeks before I got the biopsy results, so it was a long, drawn-out and stressful period of not knowing. I was lucky - it was a fibroadenoma [a benign growth], but it was a really big warning.

"I did some soul-searching and realised that maybe I was taking the wrong vitamins and minerals, not eating properly and was too stressed." So she launched her £96-a-jar Super Elixir of vitamins and minerals, believing "Disease thrives in an acidic body... and not enough green can make your body acidic."

It has been adopted by the likes of Kate Moss and Kate Hudson. But Dr Duane Mellor, of the British Dietetic Association, said that while the supplements "are not going to cause any harm as they are basically just bits of plant food chopped up and mixed together", they are "an expensive way of buying your fruit and veg".

- Daily Mail