What’s that you say? Healthy eating appears to influence your hearing! A recent long term study on women in the US found that those who ate ‘healthy’ had a 30% reduced risk of hearing loss. This is one of very few studies looking for a link between diet and hearing loss. Obviously there are many other factors contributing to hearing loss, such as exposure to loud noises over time, disease and medication side effects. However, removing all these variables, there was seen a definite link between eating well and reduced risk of hearing loss. What was ‘healthy’ eating that they used as the benchmark? There were three dietary standards used. There were: 1. DASH (dietary approaches to stop hypertension) diet, 2. AMED (Mediterranean diet), 3. AHEI-2010 (index of eating in line with dietary guidelines). Essentially, these diets focus on large intakes of vegetables, legumes, fruits, nuts, whole grains and extra virgin olive oil. Low fat dairy, limited sodium, sugar and animal fats. It is exciting to see that more and more studies on simple healthy eating practices are being shown to improve not just heart disease and cancer risks. Depression, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and now hearing loss appears to be all impacted by what we eat. References: Adherence to Healthful Dietary Patterns Is Associated with Lower Risk of Hearing Loss in Women. Curhan SG, Wang M, Eavey RD, Stampfer MJ, Curhan GC. J Nutr. 2018 May 11. doi: 10.1093/jn/nxy058. [Epub ahead of print]. PMID: 29757402.
