Hearing Loss Related with Type 2 Diabetes in an Elderly Population

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:Considering that both hearing loss and Type 2 diabetes (DM2) are significant health issues, it is worthwhile to examine the relationship between the two. After evaluating the existing literature, it was evident that there have not been sufficient prospective studies about hearing loss and DM2 that include elderly participants. Therefore, the aim of this study was to focus on and evaluate the interaction between DM2 and hearing loss in an elderly population. MATERIALS and METHODS:The current study included 93 DM2 subjects, 65-89 years of age, as well as a control Group of 90 non-diabetic subjects, aged 65-85 years of aged, who were matched to the DM2 subjects by age and sex. RESULTS:The current investigation produced five major findings. The diabetics had higher thresholds for all frequencies, except 0.25 kHz, compared to the controls. Although there were significant differences at low frequencies, such as 0.5 and 1 kHz, the differences were most pronounced at 2, 4, and 8 kHz. The thresholds for speech reception were significantly higher in the diabetics than in the controls. Also, there were no side differences between the right and left ears in the diabetics or the controls, and the diabetics had lower speech discrimination scores than the controls. CONCLUSION:Diabetes is a complex, systemic disease that can affect multiple organs and physiological functions, on molecular and biochemical levels. The current investigation showed that elderly DM2 subjects had poorer hearing levels when compared with age and sex matched non-DM2 subjects.

Hearing Threshold Level among Adult Diabetics in South-Western Nigeria

“…This observation is in consonance with findings by Ologe, et al working in Ilorin [23]. Cayönu, et al working on elderly type 2 diabetic patients also reported significantly higher mean hearing levels across all the frequencies tested (except 0.25 KHz) in diabetic patients compared to non-diabetic controls [27]. Analysis of this observation and the very similar findings from this study points to the suggestion that age might not be a confounding factor for hearing loss in type 2 diabetic patients.…”

Evaluation of Hearing loss by Pure Tone Audiometry in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

“…Diabetes patients in our study had mild hearing loss and the mean PTA was around 34 dB in both ears. A similar finding of mild hearing loss was seen in the study done by Cayonu M et al 12 In our study, the auditory threshold in the pure tone audiometry was significantly higher in all the frequencies except at 250 Hz in diabetic patients in comparison to the healthy controls for both right and left ear. Similar results were observed in other studies.…”

Sensorineural hearing loss and type II diabetes mellitus

“…15 Cayonu et al, stated that although there were significant differences at 0.5 and 1 kHz, the differences were most pronounced at 2, 4, and 8 kHz. 16 However, in contrast to these studies, Tay et al reported higher incidence of hearing loss in diabetes mellitus at lower and middle frequencies (p<0.001). 17 In the present study, out of 31 diabetic patients with hearing loss, 23 (74.2%) had history of diabetes for more than 5 years (p value 0.001), indicating that long term diabetes has higher chances of developing auditory symptoms.…”