Association between serum magnesium ion level and risk of noise-induced hearing loss

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the association between serum magnesium ion level and risk of noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) . Methods: Acohort study was performed for 7 445 workers exposed to noise in the steelmaking and steel rolling workshops of an iron and steel enterprise in Henan Province, China. The follow-up time was from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2015. The workers with a binaural average high-frequency hearing threshold of ≥40 dB (HL) were enrolled as case group, and those with a binaural average high-frequency hearing threshold of <35 dB (HL) and a binaural average speech frequency of ≤25 dB (HL) were enrolled as control group. After being matched for age, working years of noise exposure, sex, and type of work at a ratio of 1∶1, 187 workers each were enrolled in the case group and the control group. Flame atomic absorption spectrometry was used to measure the serum magnesium ionlevel. Aconditional logistic regression analysis was performed to investigate the association of serum magnesium ion level, body mass index, cumulative noise exposure (CNE) , smoking, drinking, hypertension, and physical exercise with NIHL, as well as the association between serum magnesium ion level and risk of NIHL after the adjustment for covariants. Results: There was no significant difference in the serum magnesium ion level between the case group and the control group (24.63±7.92 mg/m(3) vs 24.91±7.33 mg/m(3), P>0.05) . Smoking (OR=1.687, 95%CI 1.090-2.613) was a risk factor for NIHL, and physical exercise (OR=0.509, 95%CI 0.325-0.796) reduced the risk of NIHL. In the workers with CNE>98 dB (A) ·year, the risk of NIHL in the workers with higher CNE was 1.305 times (95%CI 1.051-1.620) that in those with lower CNE. After the adjustment for CNE, smoking, and physical exercise, there was no significant difference in the influence of serum magnesium ion level on the risk of NIHL between the two groups (P>0.05) . Conclusion: Serum magnesium ion level may not be associated with NIHL. Increased CNE and smoking may increase the risk of NIHL and physical exercise may reduce the risk of NIHL.