Trying to Connect the Dots Between Diet and Tinnitus and Hearing Loss

Summary by John A. Coverstone

Large population surveys

provide a wonderful resource to study correlations among a great number of factors at once. A group of researchers from University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, in cooperation with the University of Wisconsin, studied the relationship between diet and tinnitus and hearing loss by using the U.K.’s Biobank resource. 1 Biobank includes data on 500,000 U.K. residents, with the diet questionnaire provided to the last 70,000 participants. Participants were adults ages 40 to 69 who completed two to five questionnaires within a year’s time. The questionnaires included many questions about dietary habits and health conditions, including tinnitus and hearing loss. For this study, the researchers selected 34,576 participants based on the researchers’ requirements (completion of both hearing and tinnitus questions, age between 40 and 69 years, minimum completion of two dietary questionnaires, etc.).

Because of the format, respondents self-identified these conditions. Tinnitus was described as ringing or buzzing in one or both ears that lasts

more than five minutes at a time and is currently experienced at least some of the time. Hearing loss was based on self-reporting of difficulty hearing. Approximately one-third of Biobank participants completed a test of speech understanding in noise, and these results were found to be similar to self-reporting. Assessment of diet consisted of a detailed questionnaire about 200 common food and beverages consumed in the previous 24 hours. Other health conditions were derived from prior medical diagnosis or common signs and symptoms of the condition.

Analysis of nutrients associated with tinnitus indicated that people eating foods with vitamin B 12 were less likely to report tinnitus. People who ate more fat, calcium, and iron tended to be more likely to have tinnitus. The researchers also added reported hearing difficulties as a variable to see whether dietary associations with tinnitus were dependent at all on hearing. However, results did not change significantly. This suggests that any effects of diet on tinnitus are independent of hearing.

Similar to tinnitus, eating fat and saturated fat were linked with more frequent reporting of hearing loss. Eating foods with vitamin D or high protein was associated with fewer reports of hearing loss. As may be expected, when the researchers analyzed the data looking for associations of diet with both hearing loss and tinnitus, similar associations were found with the exception of vitamin B 12 correlating with poorer hearing and high-protein diet no longer being associated with hearing.

Further research would be needed, of course, to determine whether the nutrients identified in this study may make someone more or less susceptible to hearing loss and tinnitus or perhaps whether a completely different factor may even be common to each. Perhaps people who eat more poorly are more social and exposed to a greater amount of loud noise. Nonetheless, there appears to be a correlation between diet and hearing loss and tinnitus. This study offers a stepping-stone to more advanced research looking at whether and how we might change diet to be less susceptible to these conditions.

1 P. Dawes, K. Cruickshanks, A. Marsden, D. Moore, & K. Munro. (2019). Relationship between diet, tinnitus, and hearing difficulties. Ear & Hearing, 41(2), 289–299.