Let’s face it, there’s no getting away from aging, and with it often comes hearing loss. You can take some steps to look younger but you’re still getting older. But you may not know that several treatable health conditions have also been related to hearing loss. Let’s take a look at a few examples that might be surprising.
1. Diabetes could impact your hearing
The fact that hearing loss and diabetes have a connection is pretty well established. But why would diabetes give you a higher risk of developing hearing loss? Science is at somewhat of a loss here. Diabetes has been known to damage the kidneys, eyes, and extremities. One idea is that the condition might impact the ears in a similar way, damaging blood vessels in the inner ear. But general health management might also be a consideration. A 2015 study that looked at U.S. military veterans underscored the link between hearing loss and diabetes, but in particular, it found that those with uncontrolled diabetes, in other words, people who are not controlling their blood sugar or alternatively managing the disease, suffered worse outcomes. It’s important to get your blood sugar checked if you believe you may have undiagnosed diabetes or are prediabetic. And, it’s a good idea to get in touch with us if you think your hearing may be compromised.
2. Risk of hearing loss associated falls increases
Why would your risk of falling go up if you have hearing loss? Even though our ears play an important part in helping us balance, there are other reasons why hearing loss might get you down (in this instance, very literally). Individuals with hearing loss who have had a fall were the participants of a recent study. Though this study didn’t delve into what had caused the subjects’ falls, the authors speculated that having trouble hearing what’s around you (and missing important sounds like a car honking) could be one issue. At the same time, if you’re struggling to pay close attention to the sounds nearby, you could be distracted to your environment and that could also result in a higher risk of having a fall. The good news here is that treating hearing loss could potentially decrease your danger of suffering a fall.
3. Control high blood pressure to protect your hearing
High blood pressure and hearing loss have been closely linked in some studies indicating that high blood pressure might accelerate hearing loss related to aging. Obviously, this is not the sort of reassuring news that makes your blood pressure go down. Even when variables like noise exposure or smoking are taken into account, the connection has persistently been seen. (Please don’t smoke.) Gender seems to be the only important variable: If you’re a male, the link between high blood pressure and hearing loss is even stronger.
Your ears aren’t a component of your circulatory system, but they’re darn close to it. Two of your body’s primary arteries are positioned right by your ears and it contains many tiny blood vessels. The noise that individuals hear when they experience tinnitus is frequently their own blood pumping due to high blood pressure. When your tinnitus symptoms are due to your own pulse, it’s called pulsatile tinnitus. The principal theory why high blood pressure can cause hearing loss is that it can actually cause physical harm to the vessels in the ears. Every beat of your heart will have more pressure if it’s pumping blood harder. The small arteries in your ears could possibly be harmed as a result. Through medical treatment and lifestyle change, blood pressure can be managed. But even if you don’t think you’re old enough for age-related hearing loss, if you’re having trouble hearing, you should give us a call for a hearing test.
4. Dementia and hearing loss
It’s scary stuff, but it’s significant to mention that while the connection between hearing loss and cognitive decline has been well documented, scientists have been less successful at sussing out why the two are so powerfully connected. A prevalent theory is that having difficulty hearing can cause people to avoid social situations and that social withdrawal, and lack of mental stimulation, can be incapacitating. The stress of hearing loss overloading the brain is another idea. When your brain is working extra hard to process sound, there may not be very much brainpower left for things like memory. Preserving social ties and doing crosswords or “brain games” could help here, but so can managing hearing loss. Social situations will be easier when you can hear clearly and instead of struggling to hear what people are saying, you can focus on the important stuff.
If you’re worried that you may be dealing with hearing loss, schedule an appointment with us today.
References
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/bmri/2018/8541638/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1808869415310016
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3889339/
