When it comes to hearing, a healthy diet is more important than noise exposure
While the old wives’ tale about carrots being good for your eyes isn’t quite as true as your parents made you believe, what you eat still plays a role in healthy hearing.
University of Florida researchers examined the eating habits of 2,366 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, as well as giving them a four-part hearing test. Health researcher and lead study author, Christopher Spankovich, analysed the data, finding a strong connection among diet, hearing and noise exposure.
The results, published in the International Journal of Audiology, found that the hearing of people who consumed a healthy diet but had higher noise exposure was comparable to the hearing of people with lower noise exposure that ate poorer diets.
For the purposes of this study, healthy eating was defined as people who scored well on the Healthy Eating Index, which was part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Out of score of 100, a person is awarded points for eating well (for example, eating the full number of servings of veggies) while they lose point if they consume too much of certain foods (for example, eat too much sodium). In Spankovich’s study, the average score was 63.11 per cent. Seventy three per cent of the sample had intermediate scores, ranging from 51 to 80 per cent, which were classified as “needs improvement,” while 14.6 per cent had poor scores and 12 per cent had good scores.
“Our hearing health is linked to our general health. Our auditory system is dependent on our cardiovascular, neural and metabolic health, and if we are not healthy in general, it makes sense that we could increase our susceptibility to hearing loss,” said Spankovich.
Hearing is affected by multiple factors. Some are avoidable and some aren’t. The changeable factors include cardiovascular health issues, diet, ototoxic medications and exposure to loud noise.
Spankovich emphasised that study identified a relationship between hearing and diet – not a causal link. And while healthy eating hasn’t been proven to reverse hearing damage, a good diet plays a part in prevention.
Next, Spankovich plans to examine the link with a larger cohort over a longer period of time.