You’re starving so you go to your fridge for a snack. How about a salty treat… maybe some crackers? Potato chips sound good! There’s a leftover piece of cheesecake that would be delicious.
Perhaps you should just opt for a banana on second thought. A banana is a healthier choice obviously.
When it comes to the human body, everything is connected. So the fact that your diet can affect your ears shouldn’t come as a surprise. For instance, high sodium intake can elevate blood pressure and could make tinnitus symptoms more noticeable. Recent research is indicating that diet can have a strong impact on the development of tinnitus symptoms.
Your diet and tinnitus
The official publication of the American Auditory Society, called Ear and Hearing, published a study that observed the diets of a wide variety of individuals. Your danger of specific inner ear conditions, including tinnitus, increases or diminishes based on what you eat. And your chance of getting tinnitus increases, especially when your diet is lacking vitamin B12.
There were other nutrients besides B12 that were connected with tinnitus symptoms. Consuming too much calcium, iron, or fat could increase your risk of getting tinnitus too.
That isn’t all. This research also showed that tinnitus symptoms can also be influenced by dietary patterns. Particularly, diets high in protein appeared to decrease the risk of developing tinnitus. It also seemed that diets low in fat and high in fruits and veggies had a beneficial effect on your hearing.
Does this mean you should change your diet?
You would have to have a seriously deficient diet in order for that to be the cause, so changing your diet alone probably won’t have a significant effect. Your hearing is much more likely to be affected by other factors, such as exposure to loud sound. That said, you should attempt to sustain a healthy diet for your general health.
This research has revealed some practical and meaningful insights:
- Nutrients are essential: Your general hearing health is going to be impacted by what you eat. It certainly seems as if an overall healthy diet will be good for your ears. So it isn’t difficult to see how issues like tinnitus can be a result of poor nutrition. This can be especially important to take note of when individuals aren’t taking in the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that they require.
- Get your hearing tested professionally: If you’re suffering from hearing loss or tinnitus, get your hearing checked. We can help you figure out what type and level of hearing loss you’re dealing with and how to best treat it.
- Protecting your ears takes many approaches: According to this research, eating a good diet can help reduce your susceptibility to tinnitus and other inner ear ailments. But that doesn’t mean the entire risk has disappeared. It simply gives you better odds of preventing ear conditions. So if you want to decrease the risk of tinnitus even further, you’ll have to take a comprehensive approach to safeguard your ears. This will frequently mean safeguarding your ears from loud noise by wearing earplugs or earmuffs
- Quantities vary: Certainly, if you want to keep your ears healthy you need a certain amount of B12 in your diet. You will be more susceptible to tinnitus if you go below this level. But getting more vitamin B12 won’t necessarily make your ears healthier. Always consult your physician about any supplements you use because getting too little or too much of these elements can be unhealthy.
Real life doesn’t always echo the research
While this is inspiring research, it’s significant to note that there’s more to be said on the subject. More research needs to be conducted on this topic to validate these results, or to refine them, or challenge them. We’re not sure, for instance, how much of this connection is causal or correlational.
So we’re not suggesting that tinnitus can be stopped by a B12 shot alone. It could mean using a multi-faceted strategy in order to prevent tinnitus from the start. One of those facets can definitely be diet. But it’s crucial that you take measures to safeguard your hearing and don’t forget about established strategies.
If you’re suffering from tinnitus, contact us. We can help.
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References
https://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/Fulltext/2020/03000/Relationship_Between_Diet,_Tinnitus,_and_Hearing.8.aspx