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English: I’ve recently upped my water intake in the last few months. It helps that our office fridge is absolutely stocked with bottled water, meaning I’m not forced to drink from the tap or go out and buy my own. Though three 16 ounce bottles of water isn’t that much to drink in an 8 hour work day, it’s significantly higher than I was drinking beforehand.

Since I’ve upped my intake, though, I started seeing some others around the office drink sparkling water, or seltzers. This carbonated water never really piqued my interest in the slightest, but I figured I’d give them a shot either way.

After having a few, I can say that I see the appeal. They’re still not my favorite or something that I must have, but they’re decently tasty for having absolutely no carbs, sugars, calories, or anything else. Kudos to the brands that keep pumping out different flavors without actually adding sugars to them.

I got to wondering, though, whether sipping on this sparkling water would erode tooth enamel like other sodas and sports drinks have been found to do. So, I did some digging.

The short answer by las vegas dentist is no, the carbonated water isn’t really affecting your teeth. But the longer answer shows that carbonated water does have a little bit of acidity, meaning if you drank enough of it over time, it would start to have similar effects on your teeth to soda (though soda would produce its effects much quicker than carbonated water).

The thing to keep in mind is that regular drinking water shouldn’t be thrown to the wayside simply because carbonated water may taste better or be more pleasing with its carbonated fizzy bubbles in your mouth. Regular water is the best you can do for your body out of any single drink, so there’s no reason you should look at sparkling water as a replacement but rather as a complement to regular water.

One thing you should be mindful of, however, is that some citrus flavored waters may have a stronger acidity (and therefore eroding effect) on your teeth than other flavors, simply because of what’s been added in.

Another thing to consider is that you should try to drink your carbonated water with a meal so that you’re constantly washing your teeth off with other food materials instead of sitting at work all day pounding fizzy waters (which is a good way to expose your enamel to the acidity over and over).