US Edition
Hearing loss raises the risk of heart failure by nearly a third, a study suggests.
Data from the UK Biobank, a long-running research project on the health of Britons, found those who struggled to hear a bit had a 15 per cent increased risk of heart failure, while those with poor hearing had a 28 per cent higher chance.
Even wearing a hearing aid failed to lower the risk substantially, with people still 26 per cent more likely to have heart problems.
Experts believe that the link between hearing loss and heart issues may be two-fold. Vascular problems may impact the blood vessels in the ear but it can also cause stress and social isolation which can themselves lead to heart problems.
Psychological factors
Writing in the BMJ Journal Heart, Dr Xianhui Qin, of Southern Medical University in Guangzhou, China, said: “Because hearing problems can lead to difficulties in speech comprehension and poor engagement in social activities, people with hearing impairment are more likely to experience social isolation, psychological distress, anxiety and depression than people without hearing impairment.
“These psychological factors may increase the activity of the sympathetic nervous system and the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis, and enhance inflammation and oxidative stress, thereby accelerating atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), increasing peripheral stress, and promoting the development of cardiac remodelling.”
In recent years, scientists have begun to notice an important link between hearing ability and wider health.
In 2020, the Lancet Commission on Dementia estimated that hearing loss contributes to around 8 per cent of dementia cases worldwide.
One hypothesis is that when the sensory nerve cells involved in hearing become damaged it leads to dysfunction in the other nerves they interact with in the brain, creating a cascade effect that brings mental decline.
Makes the brain work harder
Hearing loss can also make the brain work harder to the detriment of other mental functions like thinking and memory, while another theory is that hearing loss causes the ageing brain to shrink more quickly.
In 2023, US researchers found that wearing a hearing aid nearly halves mental decline in people at risk from dementia.
In the new study, researchers mined the data of 164,431 participants from the UK Biobank, with an average age of 56, with 4,369 of them wearing hearing aids.
None had heart problems to begin with, but during the 11-year follow-up period, around 3 per cent (4,449) were diagnosed with a heart condition.
Heart failure occurs when the body can no longer pump enough blood to meet its needs and happens when the organ becomes too weak or stiff.
Those with hearing loss were more likely to be diagnosed with heart failure and also more likely to suffer from social isolation, although it did not account for all the extra risk.
The researchers say there might also be a biological explanation for the link.
The ears have a wide distribution of capillaries and the high metabolic demand of the inner ear may make them sensitive to vascular disorders.
“Therefore, hearing impairment may reflect vascular health and serve as an early and sensitive predictor of cardiovascular disease, including (heart failure),” the researchers concluded.
“Of note, both the participants who used hearing aids and those with poor hearing had a similarly significant increase in the risk of incident (heart failure), suggesting that while hearing aids can improve auditory function, they may not address the underlying vascular issues that contribute to the risk of (heart failure).”