You’re feeling hungry so you look in your fridge for a snack. How about a salty treat… maybe some crackers? Chips sound good! Wait. Maybe this leftover piece of cheesecake.
Maybe you should just go with a banana on second thought. A banana is a healthier option after all.
Everything is interrelated in the human body. So maybe it’s not a huge surprise that what you eat can impact your ears. If you consume a diet high in sodium, for instance, it can elevate your blood pressure and that can escalate your tinnitus symptoms. Research is adding weight to this idea, indicating that what you eat could have a strong influence on the manifestation of tinnitus symptoms.
Your diet and tinnitus
The official journal of the American Auditory Society, called Ear and Hearing, published a study that observed the diets of a wide variety of people. Your danger of certain inner ear disorders, including tinnitus, increases or diminishes based on what you eat. And, based on the research, a lack of vitamin B12, in particular, could raise your potential for getting tinnitus.
Vitamin B12 wasn’t the only nutrient that was linked to tinnitus symptoms. Your risk of getting tinnitus also increases if your diet is too high in fat, calcium, and iron.
And there’s more. The researchers also noted that dietary patterns may also bring about tinnitus symptoms. In particular, diets high in protein seemed to decrease the likelihood of developing tinnitus. Needless to say, low-fat diets that were high in fruits, vegetables, and meats also appeared fairly good for your ears.
Does this suggest you should change your diet?
Diet alone isn’t likely to significantly change your hearing, and in fact, you’d most likely have to have a fairly significant deficiency for this to be the cause. Other issues, like exposure to loud noise, are far more likely to impact your hearing. Having said that, you should attempt to maintain a healthy diet for your general health.
This research has revealed some practical and meaningful insights:
- Always get your hearing checked by a professional: If you’re dealing with hearing loss or tinnitus, have your hearing checked. We can help you determine what type and level of hearing loss you’re dealing with and how to best manage it.
- Safeguarding your ears takes many approaches: Based on this study, eating a good diet can help reduce your susceptibility to tinnitus and other inner ear ailments. That doesn’t mean you’re not still at risk. It simply means that your ears are a bit more robust. So if you want to decrease the risk of tinnitus even further, you’ll have to take a comprehensive approach to safeguard your hearing. This might mean using earmuffs or earplugs to make sure noise levels remain safe.
- Quantities vary: Certainly, if you want to keep your ears healthy you need a certain amount of B12 in your diet. You will be more vulnerable to tinnitus if you go below this level. But getting more vitamin B12 won’t necessarily make your ears healthier. Getting too little or too much of these elements could be harmful to your hearing, so always speak to your doctor about any supplements you consume.
- Nutrients are essential: Your diet is going to have an impact on your hearing health. It certainly seems like an overall healthy diet will be good for your ears. But beyond that, we can easily see how malnutrition can lead to problems such as tinnitus. And with people who are lacking the essential vitamins, minerals, and nutrients they need, this is especially true.
Research is one thing, actual life is another
And, lastly, it’s important to note that, while this research is impressive and interesting, it’s not the final word on the matter. In order to validate and improve the scope of these findings, more research will still have to be carried out. How much of this relationship 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. Keeping that ringing in your ears from appearing from the start may mean taking a multi-faceted approach. Diet is one of those prongs, sure (eat that banana). But it’s important that you don’t forget about proven techniques, and that you concentrate on safeguarding your ear health as much as you can.
If you’re suffering from tinnitus, give us a call. We can help.
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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