Passive Smoking may Make You DEAF
passive smokeing
Are you a passive smoker? Beware, you may be at increased risk of hearing loss, experts say. It’s already been established that people who smoke may damage their hearing. Now, a study, involving over 3000 US adults, suggested the same is true of passive smoking too.
Experts believe tobacco smoking may disrupt blood flow in small vessels of the ear which could starve the organ of oxygen and lead to a build up of toxic waste, causing damage. The harm is different to that caused by noise exposure or simple ageing. In the new study, the researchers from the University of Miami and Florida International University looked at the hearing test results of 3307 non-smoking volunteers. The tests measured range of hearing over low, mid and high noise frequencies.
To asses’ passive smoke exposure, volunteers had their blood checked for by product of nicotine, called cotinine, which is made when body comes into contact with tobacco smoke. This revealed that people exposed to second-hand smoke were far more likely to have poorer hearing than others, and to degree where they might struggle to follow a conversation in the presence of background noise. Passive smoking increased their risk of hearing losss across all sound frequencies by about a third.
You May Also Like Reading!