Hello, this is Monica Reinagle, the nutrition diva, here with this week's quick and dirty tips for eating well and feeling fabulous.

Wendy wrote to me and said, I read that drinking sparkling water increases hunger hormones,

making you eat more. Is this true?

Oh, first they took away our soda because it was too much sugar.

And then it turned out that diet soda might be just as bad.

Despite being sugar and calorie-free,

those artificial sweeteners may affect our intestinal bacteria

in ways that actually promote weight gain.

And now they're coming for our plain sparkling water too.

Will they stop it nothing?

Well, in fact, last year, researchers did find that drinking plain carbonated water can increase

Grellin, that's a hormone that's associated with hunger.

The first phase of this research was carried out in lab rats. The lab rats were given regular rat chow to eat and to drink they got either plain water, diet soda, regular soda, or regular soda that had been stirred until it was completely flat or non-carbonated.

Shockingly, the rats that drank the carbonated beverages ate more food and gained more weight than

the rats that drank plain water or flat soda. In other words, the fizzy drinks

led to weight gain even when the fizzy drinks contained no calories and the rats that

drank sugary soda without carbonation fared about the same as those that drank plain water.

Lab tests confirmed that the rats who drank carbonated beverages

had higher levels of Grellin,

a hormone that makes you feel hungry.

But rats aren't people. Maybe this doesn't apply to humans. Then again, maybe it does.

Because the next phase of the study involved 20 healthy men between the ages of 18 and 23.

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