From depression to dementia, many other health problems are connected to your hearing health. Your hearing is related to your health in the following ways.
1. your Hearing is Impacted by Diabetes
When tested with low to mid-frequency tones, people with diabetes were two times as likely to have mild to severe hearing loss according to a widely cited study that evaluated over 5,000 adults. With high-frequency sounds, hearing impairment was not as severe but was also more likely. The researchers also discovered that subjects who were pre-diabetic, in other words, those who have blood sugar levels that are elevated but not high enough to be diagnosed as diabetes were 30% more likely to have hearing loss than people with regular blood sugar levels. And even when controlling for other variables, a more recent meta-study discovered a consistent link between hearing loss and diabetes.
So a greater risk of hearing loss is solidly connected to diabetes. But the significant question is why is there a connection. When it comes to this, science doesn’t really have the answers. A whole variety of health problems have been linked to diabetes, including damage to the extremities, kidneys, and eyes. One hypothesis is that the disease might affect the ears in an equivalent way, damaging blood vessels in the inner ear. But management of your general health may also be a relevant possibility. Individuals who failed to treat or control their diabetes had worse consequences according to one study performed on military veterans. It’s important to have a doctor check your blood sugar if you think you may have undiagnosed diabetes or are pre-diabetic.
2. High Blood Pressure Can Harm Your Ears
It is well established that high blood pressure plays a part in, if not accelerates, hearing loss. The results are consistent even when taking into consideration variables such as noise exposure and whether you’re a smoker. The only variable that appears to make a difference is gender: If you’re a man, the connection between high blood pressure and hearing loss is even stronger.
Your ears aren’t a component of your circulatory system, but they’re in close relation to it: Two of your body’s main arteries go directly past your ears in addition to the presence of tiny blood vessels in your ears. Individuals with high blood pressure, in many cases, can hear their own blood pumping and this is the source of their tinnitus. Because you can hear your own pulse with this kind of tinnitus, it’s known as pulsatile tinnitus. The foremost theory why high blood pressure would speed up hearing loss is that high blood pressure can cause physical damage to your ears. If your heart is pumping harder, there’s more power with each beat. The smaller blood vessels inside of your ears can be injured by this. Both medical treatment and lifestyle changes can be used to help regulate high blood pressure. But if you think you’re developing hearing loss, even if you think you’re too young for age-related hearing loss, you need to schedule an appointment to see us.
3. Hearing Loss And Dementia
You might have a higher risk of dementia if you have hearing loss. Almost 2000 individuals were analyzed over a six year period by Johns Hopkins University, and the research revealed that even with minor hearing loss (about 25 dB), the risk of dementia rises by 24%. Another study by the same researchers, which followed subjects over more than 10 years, revealed that the worse a subject’s hearing was, the more likely that he or she would develop dementia. They also uncovered a similar link to Alzheimer’s Disease. Moderate hearing loss puts you at 3 times higher risk, based on these findings, than somebody with functional hearing. The danger goes up to 4 times with severe hearing loss.
It’s essential, then, to have your hearing examined. Your health depends on it.
Call Today to Set Up an Appointment
References
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hearing-loss/symptoms-causes/syc-20373072
https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/741394/diabetes-hearing-impairment-united-states-audiometric-evidence-from-national-health
https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/hearing-loss-common-people-diabetes
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23150692
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4632848/
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1108740
https://www.helpingmehear.com/hearing-aids-facts/
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2018/8541638/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3889339/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1808869415310016
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/1558452
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaneurology/fullarticle/802291