A clinical study of age related hearing loss among diabetes patients

Abstract

Background: Age related hearing loss is one of the most common chronic health conditions affecting the elderly people. With aging, risk of presbycusis and diabetes increases. Our study aims at evaluating auditory dysfunction in patients with diabetes mellitus aged above 50 years as compared to non-diabetic patient. We also tried to find the relation between duration of diabetes and severity of hearing loss and whether HbA1c and blood sugars levels affected the type and severity of hearing loss. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study on 106 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus and 90 non-diabetic patients with age and sex matched (controls) was carried out during November 2011 to October 2013. All patients were evaluated for hearing loss by subjecting to pure tone audiometry and blood investigations like glycated hemoglobin, fasting and postprandial blood sugars and serum creatinine levels. Results: A prevalence of 73% hearing loss was seen in diabetics. The degree of hearing loss increased with age. There was bilateral progressive sensory neural hearing loss with right sloping curve in both diabetics as well as controls but with significantly (P < 0.001) higher loss in diabetics (at 4 KHz and 8 KHz). A significant relationship between duration of the diabetes, HbA1c and severity of hearing loss was observed. Conclusion: Diabetes mellitus was associated with higher hearing loss compared to presbycusis and hearing threshold was seen to affect all frequencies, but significantly the higher frequencies in diabetics. As duration of diabetes increased, the severity also increased. Poorer the HbA1c, more severe was the hearing loss.