Five ways to protect your hearing....

Today’s post:  Tuesday, 6-16-2015

Hearing enables you to drive safely and communicate easily with other people.  So it’s critically important to keep.

Today, traffic, air traffic, construction noise, and listening to music at loud volumes hammer our ears and can damage your hearing.

That can threaten your job, your relationships, and be expensive to improve somewhat with hearing aids.

It can cause you to be in a traffic accident you could otherwise have avoided. 

And, people who are older who have damaged hearing tend to get Alzheimer’s and other mental decline more than people who keep good hearing from the lack of mental and social stimulation.

But there are 5 ways to protect your hearing. 

Besides the first one that simply avoids loud sounds without ear protection, the other four are ways to increase the ability of your ears and hearing to stand up to and recover from loud noises even when you are exposed to them!

1.  Expose your ears to less really loud noise.    

Use serious ear protection when shooting guns or setting off explosives or attending rock concerts or using many kinds of loud construction equipment or loud blenders.

AND keep down the volume in ear buds and the like!

2,  Get more than ample magnesium; take up to 800 mg a day if you don't eat at least three to five green vegetables and some tree nuts each day – or do both.

I read a report that the US military found that doing this made their front line people who were exposed to really loud noises in combat or training for it lose less hearing and recover from the initial hearing loss from loud noises better and faster.

And recently I got an email A few days ago I got an email from: RealAge by Sharecare health@realage-mail.com .

It said that:  “You can reduce the risk of age-related hearing loss by consuming more sweet potatoes, salmon, and almonds.  Australian research has shown that key nutrients in these foods may help reduce the risk of age-related hearing loss. 

In a study, people with the highest average intakes of carotenoid-rich vegetables -- like sweet potatoes -- and vitamin E-rich foods -- like almonds -- experienced a 47 percent reduced risk of moderate or greater hearing loss compared with the people who had the lowest average intakes of these nutrients.

And in another study from the same research team, people who ate a couple of servings per week of omega-3-rich fish -- like salmon - experienced hearing protection as well. After 2 years, the fish lovers had a 42 percent lower risk of developing age-related hearing loss compared with the participants who ate much less fish.”

Each of these three parts worked and they worked very well together.  So before I cover each one, I thought it made sense to quote the impressive results that these researchers found.

If you multiply 1.47 times 1.42 you get about 2.08 which means that people who do all three things may have about double the hearing protection of people who don’t.

And, if you do a great job with each of the three parts it may be more like triple.

3.  People who eat many kinds of organic vegetables each day have a 43% lower death rate from all causes than people who don’t.

And, eating several kinds of vegetables high in carotenes is the most effective way to get plenty of carotenes.  (Each of these foods has hundreds of kinds of carotenes besides the alpha and beta carotene we know more about.)

Carotenes apparently keep collagen and the walls of our cells healthy and functioning well and strongly resist damage. It’s been found for example that people who eat this way take longer to get sunburn, burn less, and recover from it far more easily than people who don’t. 

The Australian study shows this happens with hearing also.

Do get that many kinds of carotenes or more, take lycopene or eat cooked tomatoes with extra virgin olive oil; and take a multi with some beta carotene; AND eat broccoli and other high carotene greens; and eat organic carrots and squash and avocados to get multiple daily sources of mixed carotenes.  (This is also known to protect your eyesight in several ways.)

4.  Take natural vitamin E 200 iu as alpha tocopherol and mixed to tocopherols (Solgar makes one) and if not allergic, eat tree nuts each day, particularly walnuts and pecans; and eat avocados often.  Walnuts have several other health benefits besides their natural vitamin E; and pecans are high in gamma tocopherol which tests to strongly prevent many kinds of cancers. Avocados have health OK oils, natural vitamin E, AND mixed carotenoids!

5.  Take DHA and omega 3 daily and eat lowest mercury wild caught fish that is high in omega 3 at least twice a week.

This protects your ears in two ways. 

Doing this strongly cuts excess inflammation.  So when your ears and all their internal parts are irritated.  They respond quickly; but that inflammation goes away quickly instead of staying high and causing collateral damage.

But the second way may be even better.  The cells that transfer the sounds to nerve impulses and the nerves they connect to can also be damaged.  But people who do this, particularly taking the DHA, and exercise each day release a special growth hormone, BDNF, that grows new nerves and brain cells!

So by doing all five things, your ears will be hammered less and stand up to loud sounds better and will be far quicker and more likely to recover when they are somewhat damaged!