Fact or fiction: is Spa Rood (or other sparkling water) bad for your teeth?
I get through liters of Spa Rood. But are those bubbles—also known as carbonic acid—really good for your teeth? Carbonic acid is also found in cola, cassis and orange soda, and we all know that those soft drinks are not good for your teeth anyway. If you drink a lot of them, you can develop dental erosion. Should we also be concerned when drinking Spa Rood or other sparkling water?
Dental erosion and pH level
Dental erosion only occurs when a product is too acidic for you. This has everything to do with the pH level. The more acidic a product is, the lower its pH level. A pH level of 0 is the lowest value and therefore extremely acidic. The highest pH level, 14, is the least acidic. In your mouth, the pH level is neutral: 7. Your saliva keeps this level stable in your mouth. This helps prevent dental erosion. If you drink soft drinks with a low pH level—very acidic soft drinks, in other words—frequently and in large quantities, you disrupt the neutral pH level in your mouth. Your saliva has to restore it to a neutral level. The more acidic your mouth is, the longer this neutralization takes, and the more damage it causes to your teeth.
Spa Rood and your saliva
So what about the carbonic acid in Spa Rood? What does it do to our teeth? Fortunately, we do not need to worry about that. Spa Rood and other sparkling waters do contain carbonic acid, but it is not extremely acidic. The pH level in your mouth will drop briefly, but your saliva will almost immediately restore it. The saliva’s neutralization process therefore takes little time. Only if you drink nothing but Spa Rood all day, every day, for a very long time do you increase the chance of damage to your teeth. But you would have to be a very dedicated sparkling-water drinker for that.
The real culprits for your teeth
It probably will not surprise you, but cola, cassis and orange soda are real culprits when it comes to your teeth. Besides carbonic acid, they also contain other acids, such as phosphoric acid (cola) and citric acid (orange soda). These acids are very difficult for your saliva to neutralize. On top of that, these soft drinks contain much more sugar than water with bubbles.
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