According to a new study, wearing hearing aids may reduce the incidence of dementia.
A study published Thursday in The Lancet, hearing loss may increase the chance of dementia, but utilizing hearing aids reduced the risk to that of people without hearing loss.
Hearing aids may Reduce the Risk of Dementia
Those who did not wear hearing aids had a 42 percent higher chance of having dementia within 12 years than those who did.
Wearing a hearing aid may mitigate some of the negative consequences of hearing loss on cognitive performance.
Hearing loss is thought to cause the brain to shrink faster.
However, the worldwide team of researchers from China, Australia, Japan, Texas, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom stated that the true advantage of wearing a hearing aid in preventing dementia remained unclear.
They speculated that wearing a hearing aid could delay cognitive decline by preventing the brain from working hard in other areas to decipher jumbled noises coming in. This idea, known as cognitive overload, says that adults with hearing loss brains must work harder to understand the same information as persons with normal hearing, which may place such a significant strain on the brain that it cannot do other functions as well.
Biobank Volunteers Reveal Insights into Alzheimer’s Disease
The Chinese researchers relied on data from over 500,000 volunteers aged 40 to 69 stored in the UK Biobank, a database containing detailed genetic and health information on people living there as part of a long-term study that investigates how genetics and environmental factors contribute to disease onset.
The study ultimately contained data for slightly more than 437,700 people, with an average age of 56 at the outset – persons were followed for roughly 12 years.
Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias affect an estimated 5.8 million persons in the United States, with 5.6 million aged 65 and older and approximately 200,000 under 65 suffering from younger-onset Alzheimer’s. Around 55 million individuals worldwide suffer from dementia, a figure that is anticipated to rise to 150 million by 2050.
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