A person’s sex, weight, smoking behavior and hormone exposure are all linked to age-related hearing loss, according to a March 6 study in PLOS ONE.
The team, led by Dong Woo Nam, a researcher from Chungbuk National University Hospital in South Korea, sought to better understand what factors were linked with age-related hearing loss. The team assessed data from 2,349 people who were over the age of 60. Every participant submitted their medical history and underwent a few exams including blood tests and hearing tests. Then the researchers ran analyses to pinpoint which factors were more closely tied to the risk for age-related hearing loss. Of the 829 participants who had age-related hearing loss, 60% were male.
Some factors, such as age, don’t matter based on an individual’s sex with regard to the hearing loss (because hearing loss typically is correlated with age). But others were different depending on a person’s sex. For instance, men who were underweight had a significant link to having age-related hearing loss; low weight but also obesity were flagged in females when the team evaluated the data.
Smoking was linked to having a higher risk of age-related hearing loss, but only in men. Women who started menstruating at an earlier age were less likely to develop age-related hearing loss when they were older, which could mean that estrogen may have some sort of protective effect, the authors said.
Even though those were significant, there were other factors linked to age-related hearing loss. In women, hypertension, sarcopenia and diabetes were correlated; in men height was also correlated.
The authors pointed out that their research is limited and doesn’t point to any cause between a factor that’s linked to age-related hearing loss. More studies would be needed to make definitive statements. But counseling people on factors such as weight and smoking behavior could improve preventative care and screening for age-related hearing loss, the authors wrote.
