What Does Sparkling Water Do to Your Teeth?
With diet sodas earning a spot in the limelight this year, it seems like there’s no shortage of carbonated drinks to choose from. Unfortunately, though, soft drinks are packed with sugar and acidity that can erode tooth enamel, and while diet sodas are slightly less harmful, they still offer little to no nutritional value.
But if you’re not ready to let go of carbonated beverages completely, a new study by the American Society for Nutrition suggests that sparkling water is a tooth-friendly alternative to sugary sodas.
How Sparkling Water Affects Your Teeth: The reason soft drinks damage enamel is that they drastically change the mouth’s pH. When the mouth’s pH drops below 5.5, tooth enamel begins to dissolve; and while sparkling water temporarily lowers our pH, the effect is significantly less pronounced than that of soda. “Many people are switching from soda to sparkling water, and our findings suggest that unsweetened sparkling water may be a lower-risk alternative to soda, when consumed in moderation and alongside good oral hygiene practices,” explains Wajiha Zulfiqar, a nutrition science student at Purdue University who presented the research.
Excerpted from Real Simple
