Is sparkling water bad for you? Teeth, bones, bloating and soda

No, plain unsweetened sparkling water isn't bad for most people. It hydrates like still water, it's only mildly acidic next to soda, and the big bone study found no link with non cola fizzy drinks. So is sparkling water bad for you at all? Flavoured versions can be as acidic as juice, and fizz can bloat.

Key points

• Teeth: plain sparkling water measured around pH 5 in a US study of 379 drinks. Coca-Cola measured 2.37. Flavoured sparkling waters landed between about 2.7 and 3.7.
• Bones: in the Framingham study, cola was linked to lower hip bone density in women. Other carbonated drinks were not.
• Hydration: a trial in 72 men found sparkling water kept people as hydrated as still water.
• Gut: fizz can mean wind and bloating, and the NHS tells people with IBS not to drink lots of fizzy drinks.
• As a soda swap, plain sparkling water is hard to beat. Read the label for sugar, sodium and acids.

Does sparkling water damage your teeth?

Plain sparkling water is acidic, but only mildly. Reddy and colleagues tested 379 US drinks in 2016 and called anything under pH 4.0 potentially erosive. Perrier came out at 5.25 and San Pellegrino at 4.96. Coca-Cola Classic measured 2.37. On a pH scale, each whole step is ten times more acidic.

The bubbles come from carbonic acid, which is weak. The bigger worry is what gets added. Brown and colleagues at the University of Birmingham tested flavoured sparkling waters from UK shops in 2007 and found pH values of 2.74 to 3.34. In their lab test the flavoured waters dissolved tooth mineral as much as pure orange juice did, or more. Their advice was to treat flavoured sparkling water as an acidic drink, not as water with a taste added.

That's usually citric acid at work, from lemon, lime or "natural fruit flavour". If citric acid is on the ingredients list, assume it behaves more like a soft drink than water.

There's also a newer, smaller piece of evidence. At the NUTRITION 2026 meeting in July, a Purdue team measured saliva in 20 adults. Soda caused the biggest drop in mouth pH. Unsweetened sparkling water caused a short dip that was almost gone within 20 minutes, and it stayed above roughly 5.5, the level linked with enamel damage. It's a poster, not a peer reviewed paper, and they measured saliva rather than teeth. Still, it points the same way.

How you drink matters too. One can with a meal is a short acid hit. Sipping a bottle at your desk all afternoon is a long one.

Is sparkling water bad for your bones?

No good evidence says so. The worry comes from cola. In the Framingham Osteoporosis Study, Tucker and colleagues looked at 1,413 women and 1,125 men. Women who drank cola every day had 3.7% lower bone density at the hip than women who drank it less than once a month. Non cola fizzy drinks showed no significant link.

Diet cola showed a similar pattern to regular cola, which suggests the issue isn't sugar. The authors pointed to caffeine and phosphoric acid, both in cola, and to cola pushing milk out of the diet. Men showed no link at all, and the authors said more research was needed. It's an observational study, so it can't prove cause.

So the bubbles themselves look innocent. Plain sparkling water has no phosphoric acid and no caffeine.

Does sparkling water hydrate you like still water?

Yes. In a 2016 trial, Maughan and colleagues gave 72 men a litre of different drinks and collected their urine for four hours. Sparkling water made no difference compared with still water. Cola, tea, coffee and orange juice didn't either. Milk and an oral rehydration solution kept people slightly better hydrated.

The NHS lists sparkling water as an option if you don't like plain water, maybe with a slice of lemon or lime. If fizz gets you drinking more water, that's a plus.

Can sparkling water cause bloating, IBS flares or reflux?

It can make some people gassy and bloated. You're swallowing gas, and the NHS lists fizzy drinks among things that can make you fart. For irritable bowel syndrome, the NHS advice is plain: don't drink lots of fizzy drinks. If you have IBS and fizz bothers you, that's your answer.

Reflux is less clear. The NHS heartburn page names coffee, alcohol, chocolate and fatty or spicy food as triggers. It doesn't name fizzy drinks. A small 2012 study did find that 200 ml of chilled cola relaxed the valve at the top of the stomach in 18 healthy volunteers, but that was cola, not plain water. If fizz sets off your heartburn, still water is the easy fix.

Oddly, fizz may help some stomachs. In a small Italian trial from 2002, 21 people with indigestion and constipation drank either carbonated or tap water for about two weeks. The carbonated water group improved on both. Small study, one group of patients, so I wouldn't lean on it.

How does sparkling water compare with diet and regular soda?

Plain sparkling water beats both on sugar, acid and caffeine. Diet soda has no sugar but is far more acidic and usually has caffeine. Regular soda has all three. Flavoured sparkling water sits in between, and tonic water is really a soft drink.

Drink, 12 oz or 355 ml	Sugar	Acidity, pH measured by Reddy 2016	Caffeine
Plain sparkling water, such as Perrier	0 g	5.25	0 mg
Club soda	0 g, about 75 mg sodium by my arithmetic	5.24	0 mg
Flavoured sparkling water	usually 0 g, check the label	about 2.7 to 3.7 in studies	usually 0 mg, check the label
Tonic water	about 31 g by my arithmetic	2.54	0 mg
Coke Zero Sugar	0 g	2.96	34 mg
Diet Coke	0 g	3.10	46 mg
Coca-Cola	39 g	2.37	34 mg

The sugar figures come from Coca-Cola and USDA FoodData Central. The flavoured range combines the UK and US studies above.

Two things on labels. First, sodium. Club soda has sodium added, about 21 mg per 100 g in USDA's data, while Perrier lists 1 mg. That's small next to the FDA's daily value of 2,300 mg, but naturally sparkling mineral waters vary a lot, so check if you're watching salt. Second, sugar. Anything sold as a "sparkling" juice, lemonade or tonic can carry as much sugar as soda. If the label lists sugar near the top, it's a soda with a nicer name.

My view, for what it's worth: plain sparkling water is the soda swap I'd pick first, because it keeps the cold fizz and the ritual and drops the rest. More on swaps in what to drink instead of soda, and on the sugar you skip in how much sugar is in a can of soda. If your habit is diet cola, is Coke Zero bad for you covers the sweetener evidence.

How can I track a switch from soda to sparkling water?

Count the cans you stop drinking, not the sparkling water you start. I built FizzFree for that. You tell it what you drank, what size and what you'd normally spend, and it adds up the sugar and money you skip. It covers soda, diet soda, malt drinks and energy drinks.

• Swap Shelf. Put sparkling water on it as your replacement, next to the local swaps for your country.
• Fizz Map. Name the moment you used to reach for a can, like lunch or the 3 pm slump, and get a quiet nudge 10 minutes before.
• Ride the Fizz. A 90 second craving exercise: hold a finger down, breathe slowly, then decide.
• Sugar Jar. The sugar you didn't drink stacks up as cubes, and the money fills a goal you name, in your own currency.
• Taper Dial. Cut your weekly allowance step by step, or stop at once.

There's no account, and your data stays on your phone. Get it on the App Store or Google Play.

Frequently asked questions

Is it OK to drink sparkling water every day?

For most healthy people, yes. Plain sparkling water hydrates like still water, has no sugar or caffeine, and is far less acidic than soda. Drink it with meals rather than sipping all day, and switch to still water if it bloats you or sets off heartburn.

Is sparkling water worse for your teeth than still water?

Barely. Plain sparkling water measured around pH 5 in a US study, much like some still bottled waters: Dasani measured 5.03 and Aquafina 6.11. Soda measured about 2.4. Flavoured sparkling waters are the real concern, because added acids pushed some below pH 3.

Does sparkling water count towards my daily water intake?

Yes. A 2016 trial in 72 men found sparkling water kept people as hydrated as still water over four hours. The NHS suggests sparkling water as an option if you find plain water hard to drink, which can make it easier to reach your daily fluid.

Is flavoured sparkling water bad for you?

Not like soda, but it's more acidic than plain sparkling water. A University of Birmingham study found flavoured sparkling waters as erosive as orange juice in a lab test. Choose ones without added sugar, check for citric acid, and drink them with meals rather than all day.

Is sparkling water a good way to quit soda?

It's one of the easiest swaps there is. You keep the cold fizz and the can in your hand, and drop the sugar, the caffeine and most of the acid. The fizz is often what people miss, so the swap feels smaller than going straight to still water.

How I wrote this

On 4 November 2026 I read the Reddy 2016 pH study, including its full tables, the 2007 Birmingham study on flavoured sparkling waters, the Framingham cola and bone study, the 2016 hydration index trial, two small gut studies, a ScienceDaily report on the NUTRITION 2026 saliva study, three NHS pages, the FDA sodium page, USDA FoodData Central records and Coca-Cola's own figures. The per can sodium and sugar numbers are my arithmetic. I didn't test any drinks myself.

This is general information, not medical or veterinary advice. Ask your doctor or vet.

By John Osakwe, founder of Etest Tech Hub. I have built apps and websites since 2015, including Etest CBT, FizzFree and Pawlarm.