There are a few obvious things you can do to maintain your hearing. Wear ear protection, avoid excessively noisy environments, and don’t crank up the volume when using earbuds or headphones. Basically, common sense.
But did you know that eating healthy can help your hearing, as well?
What food should you eat?
The key seems to be diets that are heart-healthy, since a strong cardiovascular system is crucial to good hearing. Strong blood flow feeds the cochlea, a key portion of the inner ear where tiny hair cells translate sound waves into the electrical signals that our brains decode as sound.
In a recent Washington Post story, the director of Boston’s Conservation of Hearing Study at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Sharon Curhan, tried to make things as simple as possible: “To follow a hearing-healthy diet easily, fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables … especially those rich in beta-carotene or folate: dark orange produce such as carrots or cantaloupe and leafy greens such as arugula, kale, and spinach.”
Protein should also be a regular part of the diet, especially if it comes from fish, because their omega-3 fatty acids also contribute to hearing health.
Much of this advice stems from a major study published in 2018 in The Journal of Nutrition. Entitled “Adherence to Healthful Dietary Patterns Is Associated with Lower Risk of Hearing Loss in Women,” it followed over 80,000 women from 1991 to 2013.
The consensus on diet and hearing has been building over the past decade from this study and several others that have shown what a powerful impact good eating can have on good hearing.