Purpose: The relation between cardiovascular health and hearing loss (HL) is unclear. This study examined the association between changes in cardiovascular health and HL in a well-characterized cohort of older adults. Method: The Seniors-ENRICA-2 study is a cohort study of community-dwelling individuals aged 65 years or older. A total of 980 participants were examined longitudinally. Changes in cardiovascular health were evaluated through the Life's Essential 8 (LE8), which contains eight metrics: diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep health, body mass index, blood lipids, blood glucose, and blood pressure. HL was defined as pure-tone average (PTA) > 15 dB-aHL in the better ear for standard frequency (0.5, 1, and 2 kHz), speech frequency (0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz), and high frequency (3, 4, and 8 kHz). Analyses were performed with logistic regression models adjusted for the main confounders. Results: Over a median follow-up of 2.38 ( SD = 0.27) years and after adjustment for potential confounders, including sociodemographic factors, lifestyle characteristics, cognitive impairment, and comorbidities, an association was observed between an increase of ≥ 4% in the LE8 score and HL in speech frequency ( OR 95% confidence interval = 0.57 0.37, 0.89) and high-frequency PTA (0.56 0.33, 0.96). No association was observed for the standard PTA. Among all the metrics included, diet and physical activity showed greater impact on the association. Conclusion: Greater adherence to behaviors and health factors such as those included in the LE8 score was associated with lower prevalence of HL in older adults. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.31158406
Yévenes-Briones et al. (Thu,) studied this question.