Healthy diet may lower risk of hearing loss in women: study

Boston: Eating a healthy diet may lower the risk of acquired hearing loss in women, according to a study. Researchers from Brigham and Womens Hospital in the US examined the relation between three different diets and risk of developing hearing loss.

They followed 70,966 women for 22 years, who consumed The Alternate Mediterranean diet (AMED), Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), and the Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010 (AHEI-2010). The AMED diet includes extra virgin olive oil, grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish and moderate intake of alcohol.

The DASH diet is high in fruits and vegetables and low-fat dairy, and low in sodium. The AHEI-2010 diet has common components with AMED and DASH. The study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, found that eating a healthy diet is associated with a lower risk of acquired hearing loss in women.

“Interestingly, we observed that those following an overall healthy diet had a lower risk of moderate or worse hearing loss,” said Sharon Curhan from Brigham and Womens Hospital. “Eating well contributes to overall good health, and it may also be helpful in reducing the risk of hearing loss,” said Curhan.

Researchers collected detailed information on dietary intake every four years. They found that women whose diets most closely resembled the AMED or DASH dietary patterns had about 30 per cent lower risk of moderate or worse hearing loss, compared with women whose diets resembled these dietary patterns the least.

Moreover, findings in a sub-cohort of over 33,000 women for whom detailed hearing-related information had been collected suggest that the magnitude of the reduced risk may be even greater than 30 per cent, and may also pertain to the AHEI-2010.