You go into the kitchen to find a snack. How about a salty treat… how about crackers? Oooo, potato chips! Hold up. Maybe this leftover piece of cheesecake.
Actually, maybe you should just eat a banana. After all, a banana is a much better health choice.
With the human body, everything is connected. So maybe it’s not a huge surprise that what you eat can affect your ears. For example, too much sodium can raise blood pressure and could make tinnitus symptoms more noticeable. Research is adding weight to this idea, suggesting that your diet could have a direct impact on the manifestation of tinnitus symptoms.
Your diet and tinnitus
A study published in Ear and Hearing, the official journal of the American Auditory Society, observed all kinds of people and looked closely at their diets. The data shows that your diet may increase or diminish your vulnerability to certain inner ear disorders, tinnitus among them. And, according to the research, a deficiency of vitamin B12, in particular, could increase your potential for getting tinnitus.
Vitamin B12 wasn’t the only nutrient that was associated with tinnitus symptoms. Your chance of developing tinnitus also increases if your diet is too rich in fat, calcium, and iron.
And there’s more. This research also revealed that tinnitus symptoms can also be impacted by dietary patterns. For example, your likelihood of developing tinnitus will be reduced by a diet high in protein. It also seemed that diets low in fat and high in fruits and veggies had a beneficial impact on your hearing.
So should you make a change to your diet?
Diet by itself isn’t likely to dramatically change your hearing, and actually, you’d most likely have to have a pretty severe deficiency for this to be the cause. Other problems, like exposure to loud sound, are far more likely to impact your hearing. That said, you should attempt to keep a healthy diet for your overall health.
This research has discovered some practical and meaningful insights:
- Nutrients are essential: Your diet is going to have an effect on the health of your hearing. Obviously, your hearing will be helped by a balanced diet. So it isn’t hard to see how issues such as tinnitus can be an outcome of poor nutrition. This can be especially important to note when people aren’t taking in the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that they require.
- Quantities vary: Certainly, if you want to keep your hearing healthy you need a certain amount of B12 in your diet. You will be more susceptible to tinnitus if you get less than this. But your ears won’t necessarily be healthy just because you get enough B12. Always speak with your physician about any supplements you take because getting too little or too much of these elements can be unhealthy.
- Protecting your ears takes many strategies: According to this research, eating a good diet can help lower your susceptibility to tinnitus and other inner ear ailments. That doesn’t mean you’re not still at risk. It simply gives you better odds of preventing ear conditions. You’ll need a more comprehensive approach if you really want to be protected from the chances of tinnitus. This will frequently mean protecting your ears from loud noise by using earplugs or earmuffs
- Always get your hearing checked by a professional: Come in and get your hearing evaluated if you’re experiencing tinnitus or hearing loss. We will help you figure out what type and level of hearing loss you’re coping with and how to best manage it.
Real life doesn’t always mirror the research
While this is inspiring research, it’s significant to note that there’s more to be said on the subject. In order to confirm and improve the scope of these results, more research will still have to be done. How much of this relationship is causal and how much is correlational is still something that needs to be identified, for instance.
So we’re not suggesting that tinnitus can be prevented by a B12 shot alone. Keeping that ringing in your ears from appearing from the start may mean taking a multi-faceted approach. Diet is one of those prongs, certainly (eat that banana). But it’s crucial that you don’t forget about proven strategies, and that you concentrate on safeguarding your ear health as much as possible.
We can help, so if you’re experiencing hearing issues, call us.
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References
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tinnitus/symptoms-causes
https://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/Fulltext/2020/03000/Relationship_Between_Diet,_Tinnitus,_and_Hearing.8.aspx