Campaigns have been created to help create conscience about the negative side effects smoking can have on your health, one of the main ones being lung cancer. Studies are now finding that smoking might also affect hearing health. Loss of Hearing is a condition that has become more and more prevalent as the years pass. In this article, New Generation discusses the different studies, which have been done over the years, finding a connection between hearing damage and smoking cigarettes.
In 1998, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), conducted a study to confirm these suspicions. 3,753 adults between the ages of 48 and 92 years participated in the study. The participants’ smoking history was taken into account. The results concluded smokers were 1.69 times as likely to have hearing loss as nonsmokers. The study also confirmed that individuals who lived with smokers were more likely to have hearing loss.
In 2003, the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) did a study on the “combined effect of smoking and occupational exposure to noise on hearing loss in steel factory workers.” The results concluded that smoking led to increased possibilities of developing high frequency hearing loss. Individuals exposed to smoke had a 2.56 probability as compared to individuals with no exposure who had a 1.77 probability.
Finally, in 2008, Antwerp University in Belgium conducted a research involving 4,000 people, between the ages of 53 and 67. The participants' hearing health was checked. The lead researcher Dr. Erik Fransen explained that “the ability to pick out high frequency sounds was damaged in smokers and the obese.” He also explained how “The hearing loss is proportional to how much you smoke and your body mass index (BMI).”
In conclusion, hearing health is affected negatively by smoking cigarettes, and as the years pass new studies will come out to confirm these results.
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