"Designer Waters": Worth It?

Americans don't drink as much soda as they used to. Many are turning instead to so-called designer waters with vitamins and energy boosters.

But they can cost up to $3 a bottle.

Early Show consumer correspondent Susan Koeppen visited a New York gym, where she found people who tried them generally favorably inclined to the so-called designer waters.

"Enhanced" beverages, says Koeppen, are enhancing the bottom line of beverage companies, with recent sales growth of 30 percent -- to more than a billion bucks a year.

Beverage Digest Publisher John Sicher told Koeppen, "Beverage consumers today are looking for new and different kinds of products to try and drink."

But, while stressing the importance of drinking at least 64 ounces of water a day, registered dietician Keri Glassman cautioned Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith Friday that, "You see all these waters out there loaded with vitamins and minerals. The problem is, they're also loaded with lots of sugar. A lot of these bottles of water have about 150 calories. We're over-consuming calories as a nation. We don't need to add calories to those 64 ounces of water we need."

As for the vitamins in the designer waters, many aren't water-soluble, Glassman points out, meaning the body won't retain them, anyhow. And it's not worth the added calories just to get the ones the body does retain. You're better off taking a multi-vitamin with a glass of plain old H20, she says.

To get Glassman's take on numerous specific designer waters, click here.