May 17, 2017.
You can’t imagine for a single moment that sparkling water can make you fat. However, a study conducted by Palestinian researchers has just highlighted that drinks containing carbon dioxide stimulate appetite.
In case of diet, favor still water
If you want to lose weight, we will advise you to drink a lot. But if you had to choose between still water and sparkling water, we would recommend still water. Indeed, sparkling water would stimulate weight gain. In any case, this is what researchers at Birzeit University, in the West Bank, reveal in a study published by the journal Obesity Research and Clinical Practice.
According to this work, drinks containing carbon dioxide could make you fat. To reach this conclusion, the Palestinian researchers observed the behavior of rats that were subjected to different diets. Some drank tap water, others still mineral water, still others carbonated soda and a final group, degassed soda.
More appetite and fat around the liver
After 6 months, the researchers found that rats that drank drinks that contained carbon dioxide were 20% larger than the others. To understand this phenomenon, they took their research further and came to understand that this weight gain was due to the production of ghrelin, a digestive hormone that stimulates the appetite.
Subjects who drank sparkling water had 6 times higher ghrelin levels than those who drank plain water. They were therefore more inclined to eat than those who drank plain water. Another interesting finding: drinking sparkling water increases the fat around their liver. These results will however have to be confirmed, in order to know if sparkling water can be considered as a factor of obesity.
Marine Rondot
Read also: Drinking water: why and how much?
