Hearing Loss among Young People

[Adam's Apple]

To protect young people from losing their hearing, should the U.S. follow France's example and require manufacturers of listening devices to put a volume limit on their products?

Is Music to Their Ears A Threat to Hearing?
By Frank James, The Chicago Tribune
Mrch 15, 2006

A disturbing number of high school students and adults are reporting early signs of hearing loss, and hearing experts think they know the culprits: iPods and similar portable devices that allow people to funnel loud sounds into their ears for hours on end.

Fears and debates about loud music have been around since the dawn of rock 'n' roll, of course, from Elvis Presley to the Beatles, Black Sabbath to Nirvana. But the leaps in technology that are allowing commuters on a bus or kids walking to high school to feel like they're at a deafening concert are also channeling ever higher volumes of music more directly, and longer, onto eardrums.

Hearing experts who called a news conference here Tuesday to voice their fears didn't use the words "crisis" or "epidemic," but it was clear they were worried about the results of a survey conducted last month by the polling firm Zogby International.

for full article:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/health/chi-0603150183mar15,1,40129.story?ctrack=18cset=true

 

[Annie]

To protect young people from losing their hearing, should the U.S. follow France's example and require manufacturers of listening devices to put a volume limit on their products?

Is Music to Their Ears A Threat to Hearing?
By Frank James, The Chicago Tribune
Mrch 15, 2006

A disturbing number of high school students and adults are reporting early signs of hearing loss, and hearing experts think they know the culprits: iPods and similar portable devices that allow people to funnel loud sounds into their ears for hours on end.

Fears and debates about loud music have been around since the dawn of rock 'n' roll, of course, from Elvis Presley to the Beatles, Black Sabbath to Nirvana. But the leaps in technology that are allowing commuters on a bus or kids walking to high school to feel like they're at a deafening concert are also channeling ever higher volumes of music more directly, and longer, onto eardrums.

Hearing experts who called a news conference here Tuesday to voice their fears didn't use the words "crisis" or "epidemic," but it was clear they were worried about the results of a survey conducted last month by the polling firm Zogby International.

for full article:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/health/chi-0603150183mar15,1,40129.story?ctrack=18cset=true

I disagree. Perhaps mega releases through all media about potential hearing loss, but do NOT restrict MY ability to hear.

 

[Adam's Apple]

Maybe this is just because I live in a university town and am exposed to it A LOT, but I wish there was a decibel limit on all products sold to teenagers and college kids. You can hear them coming three blocks away, and if you've ever been next to them in a car at an intersection waiting for a light to change, the music is so loud it vibrates. I don't know what keeps them from being stone deaf. Perhaps they are, and that's why they have the volume turned up as loud as it will go.

 

[waltky]

Rows of tiny hairs in the ear detect sound...

Grown hearing-hairs 'beat' deafness in mice
9 January 2013 : Tiny hairs in the ear which detect sounds have been regenerated to reverse deafness for the first time, say US researchers in the journal Neuron.

An injection of a drug led to the creation of new hairs in tests on mice. Normal hearing was not restored, rather the mice went from hearing nothing to detecting sounds such as a door slamming or traffic. Experts said it was "tremendously exciting" but warned treating humans was still a distant prospect. To hear anything sound waves have to be converted into electrical signals which the brain will understand. The first step in the process takes place deep inside the inner ear where vibrations move tiny hairs and the movement creates an electrical signal. Most hearing problems are as a result of damage to these hairs. The study, by Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School, looked at mice which were completely deaf and had virtually no hairs remaining in their ears. A drug was used to target cells which normally support the individual hairs. It changed the destiny of the cells, by altering which genes were being used in the cells, to transform them into hair cells.

Hear again

One of the researchers, Dr Albert Edge, said: "It hasn't been possible to regenerate hair cells in adult mammals before, this is very exciting. It shows for the first time that it's possible." Brain scans showed that some sounds could be heard. Dr Edge added: "There was a slight improvement, but not a huge improvement. "They can detect a loud noise in a low frequency, something like a door slamming or traffic - but this is definitely not normal hearing." Similar advances were made with stem cells in 2012. In that study, the connections between the hairs and the brain were broken and stem cells were used to create new nerves. Rebuilding the hairs themselves is a far greater challenge.

Earthquake construction

Prof Dave Moore, the director of the Institute of Hearing Research in Nottingham, said the the workings of the ear were incredibly precise and constantly vibrating meaning rebuilding hairs was like trying to demolish and then rebuild a 15-storey building in the middle of a city, without damaging any of the surrounding buildings all in the middle of an earthquake. He said: "It's a really promising development, but it is one which needs to be treated with considerable caution in terms of a human therapy. "There's been a lot of false starts - hair cell regeneration was originally demonstrated in the 1980s and everyone thought it would just be a matter of years." He said it was an exciting first step, but there was still a huge challenge ahead to develop a useable treatment.

Dr Ralph Holme, head of biomedical research at the charity Action on Hearing Loss, said: "The idea that a drug could be used to 'trick' the cochlea into producing new hair cells to improve hearing is tremendously exciting and offers real hope to the millions of people seeking a cure for their hearing loss. "But, it is important to remember that this research is still at a very early stage and that only a partial recovery in hearing was observed. "It will be important to test whether the approach will be useful in treating hearing loss that has been present for a long time."

BBC News - Grown hearing-hairs 'beat' deafness in mice

 

[uscitizen]

Put Rogaine in your ears.

 

[del]

stop mumbling

 

[waltky]

Today is International Ear Care Day...

WHO: Hearing Loss For Millions Can Be Prevented
March 03, 2013 - The World Health Organization (WHO) reports about half of all cases of hearing loss can be prevented. To mark International Ear Care Day, which falls on March 3, WHO says there is hope of improvement for many of the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who suffer from hearing loss.

New global WHO estimates indicate more than 360 million people, or more than five percent of the world's population have disabling hearing loss. The report says more people face losing their hearing as they age. It notes one in three people over the age of 65 years - a total of 165 million people worldwide - is hard of hearing. But this disability is not restricted to the old. Dr. Shelly Chadha of WHO’s Department of Prevention of Blindness and Deafness, says around 32 million children under age 15 are affected by hearing loss.

“There are conditions which lead to this hard-of-hearing situation, including ear infections, which are very, very common in the low and middle-income countries, which often manifest [themselves] as a discharging ear…. Also, very importantly - noise, which is something which was traditionally limited to the occupational arena where people occupationally exposed were at risk of developing hearing loss. But, today, with environmental noise, with increasing technology - well, noise is a part of all our lives.”

A technician adjusts the controls on a hearing device

WHO reports disabling hearing loss is highest in South Asia, the Asia Pacific region and Sub-Saharan Africa. It can be caused by hereditary and non-hereditary genetic factors or certain complications during pregnancy and childbirth. While infectious diseases, such as meningitis, measles and mumps also can cause the loss of hearing, most of these diseases can be prevented through vaccination.

Preventive measures

 

[whitehall]

Well duh. Even OSHA will tell you that loud noises cause hearing loss. That's why you put on ear protectors .

 

[BlueGin]

Well...seeing as how loud or high pitched noises can be a trigger for headaches, or can make a headache you already have worse... it makes sense. Good sign that your body has the capacity to tell you when things are harmful...just need to train kids to be aware of the signals.

 

[waltky]

Changing brain circuitry to improve hearing...

Simulating Blindness Might Help Improve Hearing
February 05, 2014 - A new report suggests it might be possible to change the circuitry of the brain to better process sound, a finding that could give renewed hope to the 350 million people worldwide who suffer from hearing loss.

Patrick Kanold, an expert on how the brain processes sound and co-author of the new study published in Neuron, says a child's brain is malleable enough to rewire some circuits that process sensory information. "We were interested if, at older ages, we can also coax the brain to change,” he said. To try to do that, the University of Maryland biologist and colleagues from Johns Hopkins University used a reversible technique to simulate blindness by keeping mice with normal vision and normal hearing in complete darkness for a week. “We want[ed] to know if the deprivation of vision changed the way you hear,” Kanold said.

At the end of the week, the mice were put in a sound-proof chamber and subjected to a series of one-note tones to test their hearing. The scientists then measured the neural response. “And we found that they hear better and that connections in the brain had changed,” Kanold said. "It surprised us because during this [adult] age, if you would alter the auditory experience of mice, the hearing would not change, but we found if you deprive them of vision, the hearing did change.”

This enhanced image of a mouse brain shows fibers (green) that connect the thalamus, the midbrain’s switchboard for sensory information to neurons (red) in the auditory cortex.

The mice developed more neural connections, and could better discriminate among pitches and hear softer sounds. “These tones could not be distinguished by mice that were raised normally, but could be distinguished by animals that were sitting in the dark," Kanold said. "So they got much better distinguishing these very close by frequencies.”

Kanold says while the rodents' sharper hearing reverted back to normal within a few weeks, the experiment demonstrated the adult brain may be less hard-wired than previously thought. By temporarily preventing vision, Kanold says, it may be possible to change the brain circuitry to better process sound. The next step for the researchers is work on making those changes in hearing last longer. Kanold says what they find could lead to treatments for people. “This approach potentially might be useful for humans, where the peripheral hearing is fine, but where the central processing of sound stimuli is altered,” he said.

Simulating Blindness Might Help Improve Hearing

 

[Politico]

To protect young people from losing their hearing, should the U.S. follow France's example and require manufacturers of listening devices to put a volume limit on their products?

Is Music to Their Ears A Threat to Hearing?
By Frank James, The Chicago Tribune
Mrch 15, 2006

A disturbing number of high school students and adults are reporting early signs of hearing loss, and hearing experts think they know the culprits: iPods and similar portable devices that allow people to funnel loud sounds into their ears for hours on end.

Fears and debates about loud music have been around since the dawn of rock 'n' roll, of course, from Elvis Presley to the Beatles, Black Sabbath to Nirvana. But the leaps in technology that are allowing commuters on a bus or kids walking to high school to feel like they're at a deafening concert are also channeling ever higher volumes of music more directly, and longer, onto eardrums.

Hearing experts who called a news conference here Tuesday to voice their fears didn't use the words "crisis" or "epidemic," but it was clear they were worried about the results of a survey conducted last month by the polling firm Zogby International.

for full article:
Topic Galleries - chicagotribune.com

I disagree. Perhaps mega releases through all media about potential hearing loss, but do NOT restrict MY ability to hear.

Yes we need the media to tell us that walking around with earbuds blasting music at full volume is bad. Damn that pesky common sense.

 

[Delta4Embassy]

To protect young people from losing their hearing, should the U.S. follow France's example and require manufacturers of listening devices to put a volume limit on their products?

Is Music to Their Ears A Threat to Hearing?
By Frank James, The Chicago Tribune
Mrch 15, 2006

A disturbing number of high school students and adults are reporting early signs of hearing loss, and hearing experts think they know the culprits: iPods and similar portable devices that allow people to funnel loud sounds into their ears for hours on end.

Fears and debates about loud music have been around since the dawn of rock 'n' roll, of course, from Elvis Presley to the Beatles, Black Sabbath to Nirvana. But the leaps in technology that are allowing commuters on a bus or kids walking to high school to feel like they're at a deafening concert are also channeling ever higher volumes of music more directly, and longer, onto eardrums.

Hearing experts who called a news conference here Tuesday to voice their fears didn't use the words "crisis" or "epidemic," but it was clear they were worried about the results of a survey conducted last month by the polling firm Zogby International.

for full article:
Topic Galleries - chicagotribune.com

Suffered considerable hearing damage as a result of music headphones as a teen myself. To this day I have a constant flat tone when it should be perfectly quiet.