Eat healthy to protect your hearing

Dear women, eating a healthy diet can reduce the risk of hearing loss by 30 percent, finds a recent research.

In the study, researchers from Brigham Women's Hospital examined the relation between three different diets and risk of developing hearing loss: The Alternate Mediterranean diet (AMED), Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH), and the Alternative Healthy Eating Index-2010 (AHEI-2010) in 70,966 women who were followed for 22 years and found that eating a healthy diet is associated with a lower risk of acquired hearing loss in women.

"Interestingly, we observed that those following an overall healthy diet had a lower risk of moderate or worse hearing loss," said Sharon Curhan, first author of the study. "Eating well contributes to overall good health, and it may also be helpful in reducing the risk of hearing loss."

In this longitudinal study, researchers collected detailed information on dietary intake every four years and found that women whose diets most closely resembled the AMED or DASH dietary patterns had an approximately 30 percent lower risk of moderate or worse hearing loss, compared with women whose diets resembled these dietary patterns the least.

Moreover, findings in a sub-cohort of over 33,000 women for whom detailed hearing-related information had been collected suggest that the magnitude of the reduced risk may be even greater than 30 percent, and may also pertain to the AHEI-2010.

The AMED diet includes extra virgin olive oil, grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish and moderate intake of alcohol. The DASH diet is high in fruits and vegetables and low-fat dairy, and low in sodium. The AHEI-2010 diet has common components with AMED and DASH.

The findings appear in the Journal of Nutrition.