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Possible correlation between diabetes and hearing loss

New research confirms a long-suspected connection, though it is still too soon to start auditory screening for diabetics.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, amednews staff. March 15, 2004.

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The link between diabetes and auditory decline has long been hypothesized. Now, preliminary findings indicate that people with this illness show signs of hearing loss at younger ages than those without it.

"There are so many microvascular and neuropathic complications with diabetes," said Nancy Vaughan, PhD, lead author and a research investigator at the Dept. of Veterans Affairs National Center for Rehabilitative Auditory Research in Portland, Ore. "It just seems logical that there should be some effect on hearing." The study was presented in February at the midwinter meeting of the Assn. for Research in Otolaryngology in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Diabetes experts have long thought that the same kind of destruction wrought by the illness on the kidneys, eyes, heart and nerves may also be occurring in the auditory system. Several epidemiological studies have suggested that hearing loss may also be more common in this population.

"In retrospect, this may explain why we give people directions and they just don't follow them," said James Mulinda, MD, chief of the diabetes and endocrinology section at Pennsylvania Hospital in Philadelphia. "Maybe they didn't hear half of what you said."

Those who focus on this question, however, have struggled to separate diabetes-related decline from the diminishing function that could be related to age or cardiovascular problems -- both of which are also common in this patient group.

Dr. Vaughan's team tested the auditory function of nearly 700 veterans with and without the disease. They found that for those younger than 60 with diabetes, hearing loss was more severe than for the same age group without diabetes. Differences in those 60 and older were not statistically significant at most frequencies. They concluded that diabetics' auditory system may grow older faster and that past a certain age hearing loss may be obscured by the aging process.