You’re starving so you look in your fridge for a little bite to eat. Are you craving a salty treat… what about crackers? Oooo, chips! There’s a leftover slice of cheesecake that would be yummy.
On second thought, maybe you should just eat a banana. A banana is a healthier choice after all.
Everything is interrelated in the human body. So the fact that your diet can affect your ears shouldn’t come as a surprise. If you consume a high sodium diet, for instance, it can elevate your blood pressure and that can escalate your tinnitus symptoms. Recent research is indicating that diet can have a strong impact on the development of tinnitus symptoms.
Your diet and tinnitus
The official journal of the American Auditory Society, called Ear and Hearing, published research that looked at the diets of a wide variety of people. The data shows that your diet could increase or diminish your vulnerability to specific inner ear conditions, tinnitus among them. And, according to the research, a lack of vitamin B12, in particular, could increase your potential for developing tinnitus.
Vitamin B12 wasn’t the only nutrient that was linked to 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. In particular, diets high in protein seemed to reduce the risk of developing tinnitus. Needless to say, low-fat diets that were high in fruits, vegetables, and meats also seemed fairly good for your ears.
Does this suggest you should change your diet?
You would have to have a seriously deficient diet in order for that to be the cause, so modifying your diet alone likely won’t have a substantial effect. Your hearing is much more likely to be affected by other things, like exposure to loud sound. That said, you should attempt to keep a healthy diet for your general health.
There are several substantive and practical insights that we can get from this research:
- 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 susceptible to tinnitus if you get less than this. But getting more vitamin B12 isn’t necessarily going to make your ears healthier. Getting too little or too much of these elements could be detrimental to your hearing, so always speak with your doctor about any supplements you take.
- Always get your hearing checked by a professional: Come in and get your hearing tested if you’re experiencing tinnitus or hearing loss. We will help you figure out what type and degree of hearing loss you’re dealing with and how to best manage it.
- Safeguarding your ears takes many approaches: The risk of tinnitus and other inner ear conditions can be decreased by eating a healthy diet, according to this research. But that doesn’t mean the overall risk has disappeared. It simply means that your ears are a little more resilient. So if you want to reduce the risk of tinnitus even more, you’ll have to take an inclusive approach to safeguard your hearing. This will frequently mean protecting your hearing from loud noise by using earplugs or earmuffs
- Nutrients are important: Your overall hearing health will be effected by what you eat. Naturally, your hearing will be helped by a healthy diet. But more than that, we can definitely see how malnutrition can lead to problems like tinnitus. And with people who are lacking the vital vitamins, minerals, and nutrients they need, this is especially true.
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. In order to verify and improve the scope of these results, more research will still need to be done. We’re not sure, for instance, how much of this connection is causal or correlational.
So we’re not implying that tinnitus can be prevented by a B12 shot alone. Keeping that ringing in your ears from surfacing from the start may mean taking a multi-faceted approach. Diet can be one of those prongs, certainly (eat that banana). But it’s crucial that you don’t forget about tried and tested techniques, and that you concentrate on protecting your ear health as much as possible.
We can help, so if you’re experiencing hearing issues, call us.
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