A dentist has explained why he doesn't drink sparkling water, even if it's not as bad for you as plenty of other fizzy drinks.
You only get two sets of teeth in your life, and the first bunch fall out very early on, so what follows them is pretty much what you've got to deal with for life unless you want to be sporting false ones in your golden years.
Looking after your chompers is a lifelong mission, and paying attention to the warnings of dentists is worth doing if you want to avoid paying the price later on.
When they tell you how to brush your teeth, you'd better listen, and if they say you'd better quaff your fizzy drinks through a straw, then that's advice worth heeding too.
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However, dentist Dr Ben Atkins of the Oral Health Foundation says he actually never drinks sparkling water and recommends his patients don't either.
The dentist told iNews that the bubbles in sparkling water contained carbonic acid, with the expert explaining that it was a 'very mild acid' and not as bad for you as other fizzy drinks 'but it's still acid and can be bad for your teeth'.
He explained that the acid 'etches' your teeth, which strips it of protective material and when the tooth next comes into contact with something, the enamel starts to break away.
"Over your lifetime, that can be a lot of enamel," Dr Atkins said of the dangers even a milder form of fizzy drink can pose to your oral health if given enough time.
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He said that he'd still recommend still water over any other kind of drink, explaining that he'd seen patients lose up to 90 per cent of the crown on the top of their teeth 'because of acidic reflux and fizzy drinks'.
Fellow dental expert Dr Praveen Sharma agreed, saying: "A mildly acidic drink has the potential to affect teeth by eroding the outer layer of enamel of the tooth. If sparkling water is flavoured, particularly with citrus flavours, then the erosive potential is greater."
You might remember the pH scale from your days in school, measuring acid and alkaline with a neutral value of seven slap bang in the middle, and the numbers lower than it becoming increasingly more acidic.
A study on fizzy drinks from the National Institute of Health found that still water was generally neutral, where it should be, while your morning cup of coffee (sugar not included) had a pH of five, so it was slightly acidic.
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They put plain sparkling water at around that level, but warned that some flavoured forms of sparkling water were much more acidic, with the lemon-flavoured stuff dropping down to a pH of three that could do a number on your teeth.
While Dr Atkins doesn't touch the stuff the dentist said he wouldn't 'lose sleep' over drinking it once a week, he suggested that if it was becoming more than a sporadic treat, then you should avoid having it every day.
The dentists recommended drinking it through a straw, washing the sparkling stuff down with still water afterwards and said not to clean your teeth right after, as you'd be 'rubbing the acid' into them and doing more damage.
Topics: Health, Food And Drink
Joe Harker