Diabetes may cause hearing loss

A recent study in US showed that patients of diabetes are more likely to suffer from hearing problem as compared to other healthy people resulting in hearing loss or decreased hearing ability.

Tested after an overnight feast, the study revealed that the pre-diabetes adult patients also had a 30 percent higher rate of hearing loss as compared to those with normal blood sugar level.

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The blood glucose level of pre-diabetes patients is higher than normal but not high enough for diabetes.

The tests were supervised between year 1999 and 2004 under the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) held by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP).

The study thus suggested that hearing impairment may be a common yet under-recognised complication of Diabetes.

Land researcher Katheleen E. Bainbridge along with her team analysed the data collected after they conducted tests on 5,140 people, aged 20 to 69. These people were randomly selected for a hearing test followed by a questionnaire as a part of the survey.

The researchers suggested that such kind of hearing loss may be a result of the damaging of the blood vessels and nerves of the inner ear possibly due to diabetes.

"The link between diabetes and hearing loss has been debated since the 1960s or before, and our results show that a relationship exists even when we account for the major factors known to affect hearing, such as age, race, ethnicity, income level, noise exposure, and the use of certain medications," noted Kathleen Bainbridge, Ph.D., of Social & Scientific Systems, Inc.

So it won’t be unusual now to see the diabetes patients going for their hearing tests. The study was published on the Website of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine on July 16, 2008.