A few years ago I noticed an influx of women in their sixties who were coming to see me about hearing aids with the same type of hearing loss – normal hearing in the low frequencies gradually sloping to a moderate hearing loss in the higher frequencies. This type of hearing loss makes it difficult to clearly distinguish speech. They found they were missing punch lines, the beginning and ending of words and felt that people were mumbling. While taking a detailed case history, I noticed a common thread. Many women had taken the most common form of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) which included progesterone, so I started to investigate the research.
In 2004, the largest study to date of 124 women was done by the International Center for Hearing and Speech Research in Rochester, NY. The study found that estrogen and progestin HRT impairs overall auditory sensitivity relative to estrogen monotherapy. The study has shown that woman on HRT have 10-30% poorer hearing. The study recommends women on HRT should consider having a thorough hearing check-up done every six months.
No effect on hearing from estrogen
Some of the women in the study were treated with estrogen only. Surprisingly, estrogen was found to have no effect on hearing.
“It’s long been thought that estrogen is good for nerve cells, so we wanted to see if women on estrogen as part of HRT had better hearing than women not on HRT. We were very surprised to find not only that women on estrogen did not hear better than other women, but that the women who were also on progestin actually heard worse”, said senior author Robert D. Frisina, of the International Center for Hearing and Speech Research.
According to Statistics Canada, more than one million adults across the country reported having a hearing-related disability, a number more than 50% greater than the number of people reporting problems with their eyesight (StatsCan, 2002). Everyone over age 50 should have their hearing tested by an Audiologist to monitor small changes in hearing sensitivity. Please check out the following links:
By: Dr. Erin Wright, Au.D, Audiologist
Erin was born and raised in Carman, Manitoba. She attended the University of North Dakota, completing an undergraduate degree in Communication Disorders and Speech Pathology in 1994. She then studied at Portland State University in Portland Oregon where she finished a Master’s degree in Audiology in 1996. She began working on her doctorate in Audiology in 1999 and graduated in 2003 from Arizona School of Health Sciences. This advanced degree gave her in-depth knowledge about hearing aids, hearing loss as well as proper counseling in the effects of hearing loss and tinnitus. In 2003, Erin and her husband moved to Victoria, opening the Broadmead Hearing Clinic in 2006.
Speaking about her passion for audiology, Erin states: “I sincerely enjoy Audiology and feel it is a perfect fit for me. I understand that one of our basic human needs is for connection with others, and without good hearing, connections become strained because communication is fragmented. We lose our ability to communicate with ease and I get great job gratification in improving people’s quality of life.”
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Thank you for your kind words. Trish.
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