Women who take paracetamol or ibuprofen just twice a week could be damaging their hearing permanently. Taking two pills, every week for six years has been linked with a significant hearing loss, with the drugs thought to cut blood supply to the inner ear and expose it to noise damage. A new study found that as many as one in 20 women suffering partial deafness could blame their painkiller intake.
Senior author Dr. Gary Curhan, from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in the US, said: ‘Hearing loss is extremely common and can have a profound impact on quality of life. Finding modifiable risk factors could help us identify ways to lower risk before hearing loss sets in.
A study in the US found that almost one in 12 women take paracetamol on two days of every week, to get relief from routine aches and pains. However, paracetamol, ibuprofen and NSAID’s taken this often for more than six years increases the development of hearing loss by 9%. This was found by examining 55,850 women between the age of 44 and 69 – almost half of whom reported a hearing problem.
In the UK, one in six people has hearing problems that lead to loneliness and has been found to speed up memory loss and dementia.
Explanations behind NSAID’s and hearing loss:
The study proves that routine intake of paracetamols reduces the blood supply to inner ear/cochlea. It also depletes antioxidants within the ear, makes cochlea more vulnerable to noise-induced damage. Pain-killers damage the tiny hairs within the ear which aids in hearing and have been linked in younger and older women with higher risk of hearing loss.
The study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology, states: ‘If this is a causal relation, it suggests that a substantial proportion of hearing loss attributable to use of analgesics (painkillers) is potentially preventable.’
Dr. Curhan added: ‘Although the magnitude of higher risk of hearing loss with analgesic use was modest, given how commonly these medications are used, even a small increase in risk could have important health implications.’
This is the first study on the duration of paracetamol use and hearing loss, taken as any damage to the ears after 1990 in the women from the US Nurses’ Health Study. Sohaila Rastan, executive director of biomedical research at charity Action on Hearing Loss, said: ‘This study suggests that there may be a small increased risk of hearing loss in women who take over-the-counter painkillers for a long period of time. However, more research is needed to establish whether painkillers are the actual cause of this hearing loss or if other factors are involved.
BUT IBUPROFEN MAY BE HELPFUL…
Regular doses of ibuprofen may lower smokers’ risk of lung cancer, research last week revealed.
It is known the painkiller, a non-steroidal drug, eases inflammation in the body.
But researchers at Ohio State University found clear evidence that – taken in small doses at regular intervals – it can dispel much of the inflammation that leads to tumors in the lungs.
It is one of the first studies to have examined specific types of anti-inflammatory medication, and how they affect smokers’ cancer risk.