Is sparkling water bad for your teeth?

To quench our thirst, we drink different kinds of beverages, including plain water, soft carbonated drinks, and sparkling water. As the recent market search indicates, out of these choices of beverages, sparkling water is on the rise. Then, the question arises: Is sparkling water bad for your teeth?

There are competing arguments about the effects of sparkling water on our teeth; either we have natural teeth, or we have porcelain veneers, laminate veneers, e-max veneers, or zirconium crowns.

The pH level and the amount of sugar are the two main factors that the researchers focus on to determine the effects of the beverages on our teeth. The pH level determines the acid level of a beverage. The lower the pH level is, the more acidic the beverage is.

As we all agree, plain water is the best beverage for our teeth for many reasons that are explained in detail on the ADA page.

Soft carbonated drinks with more acid levels and sugar content have been becoming less preferred in recent years because of health and wellness concerns. Acid and sugar are also pointed out as detrimental to our teeth on the NHS page.

As a result of recent scientific research, if we set aside the plain water, sparkling water has been found to be the most innocent soft drink with regard to potential bad effects to our teeth. The pH level of sparkling water is generally around 4-5, which is lower than the plain water with a pH level of 7 and higher than the other soft carbonated drinks with a low pH around 2-3.

Although sparkling water is acidic to some extent because of the low pH compared to plain water, it is found out that the acid level in sparkling water does not necessarily do harm to teeth enamel. However, the critical point for sparkling water is that it should be plain sparkling water rather than flavoured ones. Because additional flavours in the sparkling water may contain more acids and sugar, which are harmful to our teeth. Instead of flavoured sparkling water, we can add some lemon and lime to plain sparkling water.

The other point for sparkling water is the frequency that we drink. If we expose our teeth to sparkling water by continual sips during the day, this may harm our teeth enamel. If we drink sparkling water with less frequency or add some plain water to sparkling water in the glass, for sure this will barely do harm to our teeth.