Added ways to prevent hearing loss....

Today's Post: Thursday, 3-17-2011

Of course, it makes sense to get and use ear plugs or even to add noise- protective ear muffs if you are going to operate or work near something like a jack hammer or work right next to large jet engines in operation – or are going to super loud rock concert -- which is most of them.

It also makes sense to be particularly careful with the volume in listening to music through an earpiece since that sound and energy transmission is so direct and unobstructed.

But, what if you already got some exposure to loud noises in the past or might be near an accidental explosion or something similar in the future?

Thanks to the email I got from Dr Al Sears today, it turns out that many good health practices can help solve that problem. You can increase your ears’ ability to recover from or withstand loud noise if you do!

That’s important since being unable to hear people can be a safety hazard or can cut you off from socializing. And, hearing aids are a bit of a pain and expensive.

Further, in part due to not doing as Dr Sears suggests -- or lack of socializing from not hearing people, people who have hearing difficulties were recently discovered to be more likely to get Alzheimer’s disease.

Here’s the good health practices Dr Sears identified and my comments:

1. “The Blue Mountain Hearing Study followed almost 3,000 people for eight years. It found that people with the highest weekly intake of omega-3 fatty acids had a 42 percent lower risk for developing age-related hearing loss”

First, eating fish high in it helps. Smaller size mackerel, herring, sardines, and wild caught salmon work. (Avoid all farmed fish due to the pollution in it.)

Taking a daily supplement of omega 3 from purified fish oil or algae or both and eating walnuts also can help.

In addition, you’ll get better results if you sharply cut back on excessive sources of omega 6 oils from corn oil, soy oil, safflower oil, and to a large extent canola oil and use extra virgin olive oil instead. Avoiding animal fat from grain fed animals or minimizing it severely also helps since the grains, primarily corn, are quite high in omega 6.

The data from the study Dr Sears found suggests there may be a directly protective effect from omega 3. But both boosting it and lowering omega 6 is also protective to your heart and blood vessels by sharply lowering excess inflammation and helping to keep your blood flow good.

That better blood flow also will help protect your hearing AND the part of your brain receiving the input.

Similarly, taking curcumin and eating curried foods that contain the turmeric curcumin likely will add to this effect. Doing those two things also lowers excess inflammation well AND directly works to prevent Alzheimer’s disease and may even lower LDL cholesterol!

2. “In a study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, people with hearing loss had 38 percent lower levels of vitamin B12, and 31 percent lower levels of folate.”

There are several ways to prevent being low in these.

Eating health OK animal protein foods such as wild caught fish, 100 % grass fed beef and lamb occasionally, some eggs, and nonfat and very lowfat dairy and full fat dairy foods occasionally from cows fed only grass all work to give you vitamin B12.

Even better, or if you are a vegan, you can take larger doses of B12 such as 500 to 1,000 mcg in small tablets that dissolve in your mouth or do so after chewing a bit without swallowing right away. This works even if you take acid reflux drugs or have poor digestion.

Folate is in most nonstarchy vegetables such as broccoli, green beans, and asparagus; virtually all darker greens such as chard, kale, and spinach; and from beans and lentils. And, each and every one of those foods is good for your health and waistline to eat!

You can also take 800 mcg tablets of folic acid which may help. But the form of folate in foods is slightly different and may work better plus the foods have all the added health benefits.

Lastly, I think all B vitamins work best as a team. So, I take the balanced B complex formula Solgar makes called Stress Formula, B Complex plus C in addition.

3. “One of the symptoms of manganese deficiency is hearing loss.”

Dr Sears lists parsley, nuts, and black tea as having this. I read blueberries do also.

And, many multivitamin plus mineral supplements have some manganese.

10 mg a day TOTAL from both food and supplements is good. But this is one to avoid taking in amounts two or more times as large as that has some effects that mimic mental illness. (I eat nuts, drink black tea, and eat blueberries.
And I take a multi plus I take 10 mg of manganese just 3 days a week, Mon, Weds, & Friday only.) I’ve read it may be harmful to get more.

“4. You’ll also want to avoid statin drugs and NSAID pain relievers.

A brand new study published a few weeks ago found that people taking cholesterol-lowering drugs did significantly worse on hearing tests than people who were not taking them.”

(A combination of eating better, taking niacin, and sterol supplements lowers LDL close to as well as statins and delivers dramatically better heart protection with far fewer side effects – including this one. Statins also lower inflammation but doing the things in number one above do so as well or better and again have other health benefits instead of side-effects!)

Also, avoid non-steroidal anti-inflammatory pain relievers because they have been shown to increase the risk of hearing loss. They also are a fairly common cause of tinnitus, or ringing in the ears. Not only is tinnitus aggravating and nerve-racking, but it decreases your ability to hear other things because of the background noise.”

(Again, doing the things in number one reduce inflammation as well or better and also have other health benefits instead of side-effects!)

“5. Selenium is a mineral and antioxidant, which has a protective effect against hearing loss.

A study from Taiwan showed that selenium protects your ears from toxicity in the environment. The more selenium you have, the better your hearing is.”

Taking 200 mcg a day of selenium works and is likely a good idea for many reasons.

And, even one Brazil nut a week can work since it is so high in selenium.

But, similar to manganese, selenium is a supplement that is quite harmful to overdose.

Do NOT take a lot more than 200 mcg plus a bit in your multi or eat Brazil nuts by the handful each week!

6. In your skin, a diet of abundant and multiple kinds of carotenes prevents or sharply minimizes sun damage and speeds healing. It works better than sunscreen to a large degree plus not turning off your skin from making vitamin D! Dr Sears has often done emails on these subjects.

But I personally believe these protective and healing effects of a diet of abundant and multiple kinds of carotenes extends to hearing!

Dr Sears didn’t include this one since he had no direct study to quote supporting it.

But I think such a study would show that effect. So, since the benefits of a diet of abundant and multiple kinds of carotenes to your skin and in preventing cancers and more are so large, if it does not, getting a diet of abundant and multiple kinds of carotenes is well worth doing.

My bet is about 10 to one the healing and protective effects are so strong that this protects your hearing. We DO have a recent study showing that people who do this and have high blood levels of alpha carotene as a result and have fewer diseases, better health, and live longer than those who do not. Another recent study found that a high carotene intake causes a glow in your skin that makes you LOOK better and healthier.

Taking a multi with 5,000 iu of vitamin A as beta carotene can help. (More beta carotene from supplements may not only not help but be harmful. Eating more beta carotene in foods such as carrots, sweet potatoes, or yams IS helpful since it has the other plant nutrients and fiber with it that make it protective and safe.)

Taking 30 mg a day of lycopene, the carotenoid in tomatoes, helps prevent prostate cancer and may prevent some breast and ovarian cancers as well. You also get similar effects from drinking tomato juice and even more when you eat tomato or pasta sauce from cooked and pureed tomatoes with extra virgin olive oil.

Broccoli and greens such as kale, spinach, and chard are high in carotenes as well.

So are squash, carrots, sweet potatoes, yams, and pumpkin puree.

So if you protect your hearing in these ways, you will hear better and your overall health will be dramatically better too.