Smokers, passive smokers more likely to suffer hearing loss, study shows

Giving up or reducing smoking and avoiding passive exposure to tobacco smoke may reduce your risk of hearing loss, new research shows.

Smokers and passive smokers more likely to suffer hearing loss, study shows

Current smokers have a 15.1% higher odds of hearing loss than non-smokers The University of Manchester study, funded by Action on Hearing Loss, Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research, found.

Passive smoking also increased the likelihood of hearing loss by 28%.

But ex-smokers had a slightly reduced risk of going deaf - which may be because once they quit they adopt a more healthy life style overall.

The study is published in the Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology today.

Smoking and Hearing Loss Scientists have recognized the danger smoking presents to hearing for almost 40 years, though this danger hasn’t been studied to the extent other tobacco-related health risks have. Dr. Katbamna’s report indicates two distinct dangers to hearing associated with smoking.

The hearing process is extremely complex and so is the hearing mechanism. Most of us think of the ear as the pinna - the outer ear that we can see. But within our skulls is a complex collection of hearing parts. There’s the ear drum, the three smallest bones in the human body and a snail-shaped organ called the cochlea. The cochlea is a fluid filled organ lined with millions of hair-like projections waving in the cochlear fluid called hair-cells.

When a sound is produced - the doorbell rings - it activates a disturbance in the air in the form of sound waves. These sound waves are captured by the outer ear, directed down the ear canal where they vibrate the ear drum, also called the tympanic membrane. The ear drum vibrates in perfect sync with the frequency of the doorbell chime.

Next, these vibrations are passed through three small bones which then pass sound vibrations to the fluid-filled cochlea where the vibrations are picked up by the hair-cells which then transmit sound to the brain via electrical impulses along the auditory nerve.

Studies reveal that the dangerous chemicals in cigarette smoke affect can affect both the conductive mechanism in hearing (the middle ear vibrations) as well as the inner ear part of the hearing (the hair cells).

Researchers looked at 164,770 UK adults aged 40 to 69 years of age who took hearing tests between 2007 and 2010 when they joined UK Biobank, a national project to improve health.

Dr Piers Dawes, from the Centre for Human Communication and Deafness at The University of Manchester who led the research, said: "Given around 20% of the UK population smoke and up to 60% in some countries, smoking may represent a significant cause of hearing loss worldwide.