Drinking fizzy water
instead of sugary pop is a refreshing way to put some bubbles back into a
healthier diet, but is there any truth in the idea that drinking sparkling
water might be bad for your stomach, bones or teeth?
Sparkling mineral water should simply be healthy water,
containing naturally-occurring minerals such as calcium and magnesium, that’s
been carbonated. This means that carbon dioxide has been added under pressure,
resulting in the presence of carbonic acid. But it’s not as scary as it sounds.
Carbonic acid is a weak acid that only alters water’s pH (the measure of a
substance’s acidity) from a neutral 7 to between 5 and 6. Technically, if
water is below 7 on the pH scale, it's acidic, whereas if it's higher than 7,
it's alkaline. Some cola drinks score around 2.5 - that’s pretty sure to rot
your teeth if you drink enough of it. Tests showed that sparkling mineral
water’s erosive effects on our teeth were 100 times less than other fizzy
drinks.*
Teeth and tummy
troubles?
As long as your fizzy water doesn’t contain any added sugar, flavour, or
anything else, the risk to your teeth should be minimal. Like anything, taken
in moderation it should be fine, but too much can sometimes be bad. Drinking
lots of anything with bubbles is likely to make you feel bloated and burp. If
you tend towards any digestive troubles, IBS or heartburn - then drinking lots
of carbonated drinks may prove uncomfortable. But on the whole, simple
sparkling water shouldn’t be harmful to your stomach. One test even showed that
it helped relieve constipation in some people.** Drinking fizzy water in
moderation could also help you control your weight. As with drinking still
water before or during a meal, it can make you feel more full - thus
discouraging you from overeating.
Feel it in your
bones?
What about bone health? Some people seem concerned about weakening
conditions like osteoporosis, but there’s no evidence to prove this. One test
showed that women who drank cola-flavoured pop had lower than average bone
density in their hips, but this may have been down to the phosphoric acid in
colas. Such results weren’t present in tests with other fizzy drinks, or even
when conducted with men.***
Drunk in moderation, and to help maintain healthy hydration, sparkling
water should not be bad for you - teeth, stomach, bones or otherwise. If you’re
worried about the effect the very slight acidity of carbonated water might have
on your teeth, then simply sip it through a straw!
sources
*
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11556958/
**
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12352219/
***
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17023723/
