You’re feeling hungry so you look in your fridge for a snack. How about a salty treat… maybe some crackers? Potato chips sound good! Hold up. Maybe this leftover slice of cheesecake.

Maybe you should just go with a banana on second thought. A banana is a healthier choice obviously.

When it comes to the human body, everything is interconnected. So maybe it’s not a huge surprise that what you eat can affect your ears. If you eat a high sodium diet, for example, it can elevate your blood pressure which can escalate your tinnitus symptoms. Recent research is indicating that diet can have a direct influence on the development of tinnitus symptoms.

Tinnitus and your diet

The official publication of the American Auditory Society, called Ear and Hearing, published research that looked at the diets of a wide variety of people. The data suggests that your diet may increase or diminish your susceptibility to some inner ear conditions, tinnitus among them. And, according to the research, a deficiency of vitamin B12, particularly, could increase your potential for developing tinnitus.

There were other nutrients besides B12 that were linked to tinnitus symptoms. Your chance of developing tinnitus also increases if your diet is too high in fat, calcium, and iron.

That’s not all. This research also indicated that tinnitus symptoms can also be affected by dietary patterns. Particularly, diets high in protein seemed to reduce the likelihood of developing tinnitus. It also seemed that diets low in fat and high in fruits and veggies had a positive effect on your hearing.

So should you make a change to your diet?

You would need to have a seriously deficient diet in order for that to be the cause, so changing your diet alone likely won’t have a significant impact. Other issues, like exposure to loud noise, are far more likely to affect your hearing. But your general health depends on a healthy diet.

This research has discovered some practical and meaningful insights:

• Always get your hearing checked by a professional: If you’re dealing with hearing loss or tinnitus, get your hearing checked. We can help you determine what type and degree of hearing loss you’re dealing with and how to best treat it.
• Nutrients are essential: Your general hearing health will be effected by what you eat. Clearly, your hearing will be helped by a healthy diet. So it isn’t hard to see how issues such as tinnitus can be a result of poor nutrition. And with people who are lacking the vital vitamins, minerals, and nutrients they need, this is especially true.
• Protecting your ears takes many strategies: The risk of tinnitus and other inner ear disorders can be lowered by eating a healthy diet, according to this study. That doesn’t mean you’re not still at risk. It just means that your ears are a little more resilient. So if you want to lower the risk of tinnitus even more, you’ll have to take a comprehensive approach to protect your hearing. This will frequently mean safeguarding your hearing from loud noise by wearing earplugs or earmuffs
• Quantities vary: Certainly, if you want to keep your hearing healthy you need a certain amount of B12 in your diet. Going below that could increase your susceptibility to tinnitus. But your ears won’t necessarily be healthy just because you get enough B12. Always consult your physician about any supplements you take because getting too little or too much of these elements can be bad for you.

Real life doesn’t always mirror the research

While this is inspiring research, it’s significant to mention that there’s more to be said on the subject. More research must be carried out on this subject to verify these conclusions, or to improve them, or dispute them. How much of this connection is causal and how much is correlational is still something that needs to be established, for example.

So we’re not implying that tinnitus can be prevented by a B12 shot alone. It could mean using a multi-faceted strategy in order to prevent tinnitus in the first place. One of those facets can certainly be diet. But it’s crucial that you don’t forget about tried and tested strategies, and that you concentrate on safeguarding your hearing health as much as possible.

If you’re suffering from tinnitus, give us a call. We can help.

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References

https://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/Fulltext/2020/03000/Relationship_Between_Diet,_Tinnitus,_and_Hearing.8.aspx