"Diabetes is associated with hearing loss in women, especially if the blood sugar disease isn't well-controlled, new research indicates.
The study, done by researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, examined the medical records of 990 men and women who had hearing tests between 2000 and 2008. Patients with diabetes were divided into two groups: well-controlled and poorly controlled.
Among women aged 60 to 75, hearing loss was 14 percent worse even in well-controlled diabetics compared to those without diabetes. That is not a clinically significant loss, noted study author Dr. Kathleen Yaremchuk, chairwoman of the department of otolaryngology at the Henry Ford Healthcare System in Detroit.
"An individual might not notice it," Yaremchuk said. On the other hand, poorly controlled diabetics' hearing was 28 percent worse than the non-diabetic group's hearing.
Younger women who had diabetes, well-managed or not, were more likely to have hearing loss than those unaffected by the illness, the study found.
Diabetes is known to affect the eyes, kidneys and other organs, Yaremchuk said. "Our study shows it can affect hearing as well."
In the study, presented recently at the Triological Society's annual meeting in Miami Beach, Fla., there was no link between hearing loss among men and diabetes, whether it was well-managed or not. Men are more likely in general to suffer from hearing loss than women, so the prevalence of the condition among males may mask diabetes' effect, the study suggested.
Men are exposed to more environmental causes of hearing loss, such as loud noise, either in the workplace or during leisure activities, such as attending large sporting events, explained Yaremchuk.
Managing diabetes properly should help prevent hearing loss or keep it from getting worse, Yaremchuk said.
What's unknown is if better management of diabetes can reverse hearing loss that's already occurred. "We do not know if losing weight and improving control of diabetes will reverse the hearing loss that is seen. However, it will stop progression of the hearing loss," she said.
Recommendations call for diabetics' to have their vision checked every year, said Dr. Spyros Mezitis, a clinical endocrinologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.
This latest finding suggests diabetics may also need to have their hearing tested, Mezitis said. "This study will help make doctors more aware to ask about hearing, particularly in women between 60 and 75," said Mezitis, also an assistant professor of clinical medicine at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Cornell Medical Center.
About 26 million Americans have diabetes, mostly type 2, which is associated with obesity.
Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal."
As an impropmtu voluntary test subject, I'll step in and tell you about my ear-ringing: when I went Paleo, I experienced louder ringing every time I ate almond flour or just almonds. I then went to Google to find out why, and learned about salicylates and why aspirin can produce ringing in the ears. I also learned there are foods I must limit or avoid to tone down the ringing (almonds, plums, and broccoli are a few). Sadly, the ringing has never gone away completely, and sometimes it shifts from one ear to the other, and changes pitch and tone. However, it has quieted down--this is what I get for blasting the radio and wearing headphones when I was a kid, and (now) blasting the sugar in the diet for so many years.
How many of us went to loud concerts as teens/20-somethings, and sat in the front row, or near the speakers? I predict a hearing-loss epidemic that will dwarf the skin cancer epidemic that's yet to come--how many of us ran around in the sun for hours unprotected by sunscreen?
All CW doctors will do for someone with tinnitus, or ringing in the ears, is prescribe a hearing aid to try to "hear around it." Try the food and sugar-lowering thing first to see if at least you can control the noise before resorting to expensive mechanical half-measures. At least I can sleep now!
For almond flour in Paleo recipes, I substitute homemade macadamia flour, or mix the almond flour with other flours--yes, macadamias are moderately loaded with salicylates, but I have food allergies to contend with, and macadamias allow me to do both. Other nuts cause a reaction.
My "tolerable" almond flour mixture: 50% almond flour, 25% flax meal, 12% coconut flour, and 13% tapioca flour. I have a flour canister filled with this mix, and use it just as people use regular flour--I scoop it out by the cup.
If you want exact measurements for making your own canister full, a flour canister holds 16-18 cups (I used 16 to leave headroom for shaking and storing the cup), so 50% of that is 8 cups almond flour, 25% of that is 4 cups of flax meal, and the rest is 2 cups each of both coconut flour and tapioca flour. I don't know if this can be considered an all-purpose Paleo flour mix, but it serves my purposes of muffins and pancakes well.
If I need straight nut flour, I resort to the ground and dried macadamias.
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