You walk into the kitchen to find a bite to eat. How about a salty treat… how about crackers? Oooo, chips! There’s a leftover piece of cheesecake that would be delightful.
Actually, maybe you should just eat a banana. A banana is a healthier option after all.
With the human body, everything is interconnected. So the fact that what you eat can impact your ears shouldn’t be surprising. If you consume a high sodium diet, for instance, it can raise your blood pressure which can increase your tinnitus symptoms. Recent research is suggesting that diet can have a direct impact on the development of tinnitus.
Tinnitus and your diet
The official journal of the American Auditory Society, called Ear and Hearing, published research that looked at the diets of a wide variety of individuals. Your danger of certain inner ear conditions, including tinnitus, increases or diminishes based on what you eat. And, according to the research, a deficiency of vitamin B12, particularly, could raise your potential for developing tinnitus.
Vitamin B12 wasn’t the only nutrient that was associated with tinnitus symptoms. Your chance of getting tinnitus also increases if your diet is too rich in fat, calcium, and iron.
And there’s more. This research also indicated that tinnitus symptoms can also be affected by dietary patterns. Particularly, diets high in protein seemed to decrease the likelihood of developing tinnitus. It also appeared that diets low in fat and high in fruits and veggies had a positive impact on your hearing.
So should you make a change to your diet?
You would need to have a seriously deficient diet in order for that to be the cause, so modifying your diet alone probably won’t have a substantial effect. Other problems, such as exposure to loud sound, are far more likely to affect your hearing. But your general health depends on a healthy diet.
This research has revealed some practical and meaningful insights:
- Nutrients are important: Your general hearing health will be effected by what you eat. Clearly, your hearing will be benefited by a healthy diet. But beyond that, we can definitely see how malnutrition could cause issues such as tinnitus. This can be particularly important to take note of when individuals aren’t getting the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that they require.
- Quantities vary: Certainly, if you want to keep your hearing healthy you need a certain amount of B12 in your diet. Going below that could increase your susceptibility to tinnitus. But getting more vitamin B12 isn’t necessarily going to make your ears healthier. Always speak with your physician about any supplements you take because getting too little or too much of these elements can be unhealthy.
- Safeguarding your ears takes many strategies: The danger of tinnitus and other inner ear conditions can be decreased by eating a healthy diet, according to this research. But that doesn’t mean the entire risk has disappeared. It just gives you better odds of preventing ear conditions. So if you want to lower the chance of tinnitus even more, you’ll have to take a comprehensive approach to safeguard your hearing. This will frequently mean protecting your hearing from loud noise by using earplugs or earmuffs
- Always get your hearing checked by a professional: Come in and get your hearing checked if you’re experiencing tinnitus or hearing loss. We will help you determine what type and degree of hearing loss you’re dealing with and how to best treat it.
Real life doesn’t always mirror the research
And, finally, it’s significant to note that, while this research is exciting and fascinating, it’s not the last word on the matter. More research must be carried out on this subject to confirm these results, or to refine them, or dispute them. How much of this relationship is causal and how much is correlational is still something that needs to be established, for instance.
So we’re not suggesting that tinnitus can be stopped by a B12 shot alone. Keeping that ringing in your ears from surfacing in the first place could mean taking a multi-faceted approach. One of those facets can certainly be diet. But it’s essential that you don’t forget about tried and tested methods, and that you pay attention to safeguarding your hearing health as much as possible.
We can help, so if you’re suffering from hearing issues, call us.
References
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tinnitus/symptoms-causes
https://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/Fulltext/2020/03000/Relationship_Between_Diet,_Tinnitus,_and_Hearing.8.aspx
