HOW SMOKING AND NUTRITION AFFECT YOUR HEARING by Guest Columnist John O'Connor

How Smoking and Nutrition Affect Your Hearing

Hearing is one of the five basic senses that perceive and interpret the world around us. When there is something physically or neurologically wrong with the way the brain receives sensory information, it can affect your behavior, reactions and quality of life. The choices you make can affect your hearing. When you choose to stay in an environment that hurts your ears or when you pick unhealthy habits such as smoking, you can make your current hearing issues worse.

Role that Smoking Plays in Hearing Loss

Many people believe that hearing loss is a normal part of the aging process, but recent research that was performed on teenagers exposed to secondhand smoke at home showed they were more likely to have sensorineural hearing loss than those who hadn’t. . Sensorineural hearing loss is a problem with the inner ear that occurs if the hair follicle receives an injury or dies. This type of hearing loss is common in seniors and cannot be reversed.

These teenagers had problems with every sound frequency tested but particularly the mid-to-high frequency ranges that are essential for understanding what you hear. Those with the greatest exposure to cigarette smoke had low frequency losses as well. Smoke restricts the blood vessels and results in less blood flow to the ears, but additional research performed on animals also showed there are nicotine receptors in the hair follicles. If smoke binds to those receptors, it creates a toxic situation that can destroy the hair follicle and cause hearing loss and other problems.

Role of Nutrition

While smoking or being exposed to second hand smoke can contribute to your need for a  hearing aid, , research has also looked at the role that nutrition plays. Hearing loss coincides with low levels of calcium and low bone density. Other studies have looked into B-12 deficiency and inadequate levels of folate. B-12 affects the neurological and vascular systems connected to hearing. When B-12 and folate are low, homocysteine is high. That can interfere with circulation and damage the nerves in the inner ear.

What You Can Do

Aging and loud noises certainly play into hearing loss, but you are not helpless to make a difference. Incorporating healthy living into your life can reverse middle ear tendencies to retain fluid and stop further deterioration of your inner ear. If you currently smoke, consider entering a program that can help you to stop. If you’ve living a sedentary lifestyle, search out ways to become more active. Daily exercise will help to increase bone density and help the body hang onto more calcium.

Studying nutritional principles and changing your dietary habits can also help. B-12 is found in dairy products, and folate comes in dark green leafy vegetables such as spinach. As research into hearing loss continues to unfold, it’s becoming more obvious that many of the problems associated with aging are not actually connected to aging at all. When you take the steps to avoid toxins and boost nutrition and

exercise today, you can avoid further hearing problems tomorrow.


John O'Connor is a father, husband, lover of sports and the outdoors and new found blogger.  He is passionate about healthy aging and living a healthy lifestyle especially in terms of hearing loss.  He feels hearing loss is a major problem and that it is important to spread awareness due to the lack of understand around the issue.

QUESTIONS, STUPIDITY, AND ANSWERS

Oh, the questions I’ve been asked! In the course of lifetime (which is longer than I’d like to admit), I’ve been asked some doozies. On the happenstance that you’d like to hear a few, I decided to write down the questions I’ve been asked in the past couple of weeks:

• How do deaf people drive?

Exactly the same way hearing people do. You don’t need sound to drive. If that were a fact, then what about hearing people who crank the radio up to blasting or people who chat endlessly on their cell phone? The only thing you really use sound for regularly is sirens and such. But that’s why they also have flashing lights. Hello? A good driver, deaf or hearing, uses his mirrors and stays visually alert. Sound is not a requirement.

• How do deaf people have sex?

Ummm. Would you like a video blog answer to this question?

Or, as comedian and CODA Keith Wann would answer, “The same way hearing people do—loud and sloppy.”

• How do deaf people talk/communicate?

As diversely as the rest of the population. Some of us sign. Some of us lipread and speak. Some of us stand on our heads and blink in Morse Code. Many of us do snappy variations!

• How do deaf people read?

Huh? We go through the same school system as everyone else. We learn to read—given the school system does their job—just like everyone else. But because some deaf children are denied access to a language before they start school (meaning they’re forced to figure out how to speak and “listen” when they can’t hear anything, instead of allowing them to express themselves manually in sign and then be taught English later), they can struggle with reading English.Wouldn't anyone??

Just like hearing people, there are deaf people who are English scholars, deaf people who just read well, and illiterate deafies. But, in general, how do we read? With our eyes and our brain.

• How do deaf people hear music?

Who says we do? There’s absolutely no way of answering that, because it all depends on how much residual (or amplified) hearing a person has as well as their personal likes and dislikes. It’s kind of common sense, here, folks.

• How do deaf people talk on the phone?

Actually, I don’t consider this a stupid question.

There are several different devices for deaf and hard of hearing people to use in order to use a phone. There are amplified telephones, amplifiers to attach to telephones, captioned phones, TTYs/TDDs, videophones, relay systems, etc. Lots of choices. I won’t go into details in this post, but we have a lot of assistive technology in this realm.

• How do deaf people wake up?

Again, not a stupid question, but I find it hard to answer when it’s phrased “how do deaf people…”, as if there is only one way all deaf people do something. We’re as much individuals as hearing people. There is no “one size fits all.”

Many deaf use vibrating or light-flashing alarm clocks that shake the bed and blink a lamp when it’s time to get up. But that’s just one way.

• How do deaf people clap?

Oh, come on! I guess I can read this one of two ways: How do we put our hands together and produce the same sound as hearing people do or how do we applaud something we wish to acknowledge (like a really great play or performance).

For the former? Get a life.

For the latter? Deaf applause consists of lifting your hands above your head and shaking them. The reason for this is that it’s more visual. It’s customary for people (regardless of hearing status) to clap for a hearing person’s performance and use Deaf applause for a deaf person’s performance. It all depends on the applauder and the applaudee (is that even a word?).

• How do deaf people have their own thoughts?

Wow. I don’t know. I mean, do we??? (That was sarcasm.) I’m thinking (praying) that I must have “heard” them wrong. Let’s try again (and hope it’s what they meant)….

• How do deaf people hear their own thoughts?

OK. A little better. If a person is born profoundly deaf and has never been able to hear the spoken word in any way, shape, or form, then chances are they don’t hear it, per se, as it would be spoken. How in the world would they even know what it sounds like?

However, that being said, we "hear" our thoughts very clearly. We are able to think our own thoughts and understand what we mean. We’re not imbeciles! How a person “hears” something is individualistic. You’re probably thinking like a hearie and trying to imagine how a deaf person would hear like you. You have to try to think outside the box.

In fact, in this world, when trying to figure out how people different from you can do certain things, you will always have to think outside the box. You have to stop thinking people must do things in the same fashion as you or other people you know. We’re humans. We’re different. And we do different things differently.

• How do deaf people hear in their dreams?

This is another question of which I’ve been asked many variations. Some want to know if we hear in our dreams or if we sign in our dreams or this or that. Although I’ve never hooked up a brainwave machine to a bunch of deafies to compare, it would seem (ahem) logical that a person would communicate in their dreams in much the same way as they communicate when they’re awake.

• How do deaf people laugh?

Laughter is a reflex action—not a planned and carefully performed parlor trick. When we see/read/are told something funny, we laugh. How is that hard to understand?

Also, everyone in this world has their own sound when they laugh. Some snort, some guffaw, some giggle, some slobber…you get the idea. So, too, does every deaf person have their own sound when they laugh. I’ve had people talk about how “horrible” deaf people sound when they laugh (I’ve even seen stupid comments about how “hysterical” deaf people sound when they’re having sex). Horrible in whose opinion? Some snot-nosed, cocky jerk, who believes he has the ear of God in deciding what sounds appropriate and what doesn’t? Hmmm. I think it may be vaguely obvious I have an opinion about that.

• How do deaf people write?

I will answer that question with an impervious retort…. Although some can’t write at all (just like many hearies), some of us (Me! Me! Me! Me!) write extremely well. And there is no question about that.