Relationship Between Diet, Tinnitus, and Hearing Difficulties.
Piers Dawes, Karen J Cruickshanks, Antonia Marsden and 2 others
PMID 31356390WHAT IT FOUND
Higher fat, calcium, and iron intake linked to more tinnitus; vitamin B12 and high-protein diets linked to less.
For hearing, high fat and saturated fat linked to difficulties, while vitamin D and high-protein diets linked to better outcomes. These are cross-sectional associations, not proof that diet causes these conditions.
Key findings
01Higher intake of calcium, iron, and fat was associated with increased odds of tinnitus, while higher intake of vitamin B12 and a high-protein dietary pattern was associated with reduced odds of tinnitus.
02Higher intake of fat and saturated fat was associated with higher odds of reporting hearing difficulties, whereas higher intake of vitamin D, a prudent dietary pattern, and a high-protein dietary pattern were associated with reduced odds.
03The study design was cross-sectional, meaning it identified associations between diet and hearing/tinnitus but could not establish causal links or determine if diet preceded the conditions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it cannot determine if diet caused hearing/tinnitus or if people with these conditions changed their diets. Hearing and tinnitus were assessed by self-report, not by audiometry or objective clinical measures, which introduces potential misclassification. Nutrient intake was estimated from dietary recall questionnaires, which are prone to reporting errors and do not account for individual differences in absorption or bioavailability. The analysis did not adjust for multiple comparisons (type-1 statistical errors), so some significant associations may be false positives. The UK Biobank sample is not fully representative of the general UK population, and the response rate was low (5.47%). Dietary supplements were excluded from the main analysis, so the findings do not reflect the impact of supplementation.
Declared interests
The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret these associations as proof that changing diet will cure or prevent tinnitus and hearing loss. This is a cross-sectional study using self-reported outcomes and dietary estimates, meaning it cannot establish cause and effect. The observed relationships are small and may be influenced by unmeasured confounders or statistical chance.