A Healthy Diet Can Lower the Risks of Hearing Loss

If you’ve been thinking about how you can help lower the risk of hearing loss lately, then we’ve got some good news for you. There have been some studies conducted that have shown that a healthy diet can lower the risks of hearing loss. 

As such, if you know that your diet could be better and you’ve been worried about your hearing health, then this might be a good time to make this change! We’re going to take a look at some of the things that you need to know about how a healthy diet can lower the risks of hearing loss.

Which diets can help prevent hearing loss?

There are a number of diets that have been proven to help prevent hearing loss. One of these is the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH). This encourages you to eat a lot of fruit, vegetables, lean meats, fish and low-fat dairy. As well as this, you should limit the amount of salt, sugar and fat that you are eating.

Another diet is the Alternate Mediterranean Diet (AMED) which focuses on vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes, whole grains and olive oil. Ideally for this diet you should eat a lot of fish, and limit the amount of alcohol that you ingest. The last one is the Alternative Healthy Eating Index 2010 (AHEI-2010) which again encourages fruits and vegetables, while saying that you should limit sugar and salt.

As you can see then, there is a common theme emerging if you look at the requirements of each diet. Fruits and vegetables are good for you and your overall health, while high amounts of sugar are not.

Why does dieting impact hearing?

But why would dieting be able to impact hearing? There is no definitive answer, but there are a few theories. One of these is that your diet is linked to lower risk of conditions that damage the arteries and veins including diabetes. When it comes to your overall health, blood flow to each part of the body is important and this is the exact same for the ears. The inner ear is the part that detects sound, and is vulnerable to changes in oxygen levels and blood pressure.

The reason that fruits and vegetables are a pivotal part of the diets mentioned above is because they provide the body with essential antioxidant vitamins and minerals. We can’t make a lot of these on our own, so we have to get them from the food we consume. The more we can get, the better it is going to be for you and your hearing health. 

Why is preventing hearing loss important?

Your hearing health is often something that people forget about, but that doesn’t make it any less important than other aspects of your health. We’re sure that you want to keep your hearing in the best possible condition without having to use hearing aids to hear people speaking. If you don’t take the right steps to prevent hearing loss now, you could end up losing your hearing a lot earlier than most people. 

Other ways to prevent hearing loss

There are also other ways to prevent hearing loss aside from a healthy diet. One of these is that you should always try to avoid places where there are loud noises. For example, a washing machine should be avoided as much as possible, even though it might not seem like a big deal. Also, if you go to a concert at any point, make sure that you are wearing earplugs. 

The reason for this is that it will drown out some of the noise, while still being able to hear what is going on. It might not be a cool thing to do, but it will help keep your hearing intact for as long as possible.

You should also be taking care when listening to music. We know it can be fun when you’ve got the volume turned up and you’re singing your heart out to a song, but you need to be careful. Consistent exposure to loud noises is one of the leading causes of hearing loss. Just keep it at a reasonable volume so that this doesn’t happen.

If you want to find out more about this topic, or hearing health in general, then contact Salyer Hearing Center at Sylva: 828-586-7474, Franklin: 828-524-5599 and Murphy: 828-835-1014. A friendly member of the team will assist you with any queries that you may have.