A Healthy Diet Can Lower the Risks of Hearing Loss

There are several reasons to eat a healthy diet, from cardiovascular benefits to positive impacts on your auditory system. The foods you choose to eat contain important vitamins and minerals that help your bodily systems function properly. Additional benefits of a healthy diet include:

• Reduces the risk of developing heart diseases.
• Reduces the risk of cancer
• Eating a healthy diet enhances a person’s mood.
• A healthy diet improves the gut’s health
• A healthy diet can help maintain brain health and cognition.
• Eating a healthy diet prevents the development of obesity hence reducing the risks of developing chronic diseases.
• Eating a healthy diet enhances the management of diabetes.
• A healthy diet improves bones and teeth health.
• A healthy diet improves the quality of sleep.

Can eating a healthy diet minimize the risk of hearing loss?

Based on the latest research, your hearing ability can be significantly determined by the diet, especially as an individual grows older. Based on a study conducted in 2019, women who testified eating healthier diets experienced reduced hearing loss rates than those who had a reduced healthy diet.

Eating a diet comprising vegetables and fruits, beans, whole grains and healthy proteins may reduce the risk of hearing loss.

The research entailed evaluating the women’s hearing, and three years later, their hearing evaluation was done again. Women who adhered closely to the recommended healthy diets were less likely to develop high-frequency hearing loss by 25%.

The research also established that the chances of mid-frequency hearing sensitivities decline were about 30% lower among the people whose diets were close to healthy dietary patterns.

Types of healthy diets

People often perceive diet as restrictive, temporary, controlled and a general thing they don’t want to do. However, a healthy diet doesn’t refer to a strict program, but a comprehensive eating method that is more of an approach but not a set of rules.

These eating approaches concentrate on plant-based foods avoiding the consumption of processed foods. The approaches emphasize on:

• Increased consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains and legumes
• Reduced consumption of meat and dairy
• Avoiding consumption of processed foods such as sugars, oils and grains.

These crucial characteristics of healthy diets provide the minerals, vitamins, nutrients and fibers that enhance the body’s energy, strength and sustainability. This significantly helps in the prevention of diseases and contributes to the improvement of the quality of life.

Nutrients for healthy hearing

Several nutrients enhance hearing ability. They include:

• Potassium: helps in conserving the fluid levels found in the interior ear. This helps in the translation of soundwaves to enable the brain to process. Food’s rich in potassium include broccoli, mushrooms, spinach, potatoes, and fruits such as oranges, bananas and cantaloupe.
• Magnesium: helps in the protection of the hair cells found in the inner ear. Food’s rich in magnesium include black beans, kales, cabbage, seafood, chickpeas, avocado, artichokes and raspberries.
• Folic acid: It helps in healthy cell maintenance. Folate-rich food comprises citrus fruits such as lemons, oranges and grapefruits, asparagus, spinach, beans and lentils.
• Omega 3: It helps in the reduction of low inflammation and low blood pressure. Food rich in omega-three includes chia seeds, fish, nuts, flaxseed, brussels sprouts and tofu.

Why does diet affect hearing?

There are various theories on why eating a healthy diet can reduce and protect developing a hearing loss condition. Mainly, they relate to general cardiac health.

Eating a healthy diet reduces the risks of developing heart diseases and conditions that damage or inflame the veins and arteries, like diabetes. Just like general health, blood flow to the ears is essential in maintaining a healthy hearing.

The interior ear responsible for sensing sound is vulnerable to inflammation, oxygen levels and blood pressure changes. Eating a healthy diet can be an essential source of antioxidants that protect against oxidative stress damage.

Eating many fruits also provides crucial antioxidant minerals and vitamins that the body cannot produce independently.

What about minerals and vitamins?

Many research pieces have been made to determine whether minerals and vitamins in the diet can enhance the hearing health. For instance, a study established that eating a diet rich in vitamin folate helps older men to reduce the risk of hearing loss. Additionally, potassium, magnesium and zinc minerals are crucial for good hearing preservation.

Other ways to prevent hearing loss

Since hearing loss has several causes like exposure to excess or loud noise, a healthy diet offers protection. Therefore, it is essential to determine other ways that prevent hearing loss.

Would you wish to seek services from a reputable hearing loss audiologist? Then, it would help if you considered Audiology and Hearing Aid Services. To learn more about Audiology and Hearing Aid Services, contact us today at 912-351-3038.