You go into the kitchen to find a bite to eat. Will it be something salty… maybe some crackers? Potato chips sound good! Wait. Maybe this leftover piece of cheesecake.

On second thought, maybe you should just have a banana. Of course, a banana is a much healthier option.

Everything is interconnected in the human body. So the fact that your diet can affect your ears shouldn’t be surprising. If you consume a high sodium diet, for example, it can elevate your blood pressure which can increase your tinnitus symptoms. Research is adding weight to this notion, suggesting that your diet could have a direct impact on the manifestation of tinnitus symptoms.

Your diet and tinnitus

The official journal of the American Auditory Society, called Ear and Hearing, published research that observed the diets of a wide variety of individuals. Your risk of specific inner ear disorders, including tinnitus, increases or diminishes depending on what you eat. And your chance of developing tinnitus increases, particularly when your diet is lacking vitamin B12.

Vitamin B12 wasn’t the only nutrient that was associated with tinnitus symptoms. Your chance of developing tinnitus also increases if your diet is too high in fat, calcium, and iron.

And there’s more. This research also showed that tinnitus symptoms can also be impacted by dietary patterns. Particularly, diets high in protein seemed to reduce the likelihood of developing tinnitus. Needless to say, low-fat diets that were high in fruits, vegetables, and meats also appeared fairly good for your ears.

Does this mean you need to change your diet?

Diet by itself isn’t likely to significantly change your hearing, and in fact, you’d most likely have to have a fairly severe deficiency for this to be the cause. Your hearing is far more likely to be impacted by other things, such as exposure to loud sound. Having said that, you should try to maintain a healthy diet for your general health.

There are some substantive and practical insights that we can take from this research:

• Get your hearing tested professionally: Come in and get your hearing evaluated if you’re experiencing tinnitus or hearing loss. We can help you determine (and correctly address) any hearing loss.
• Quantities vary: Certainly, if you want to keep your ears healthy you need a certain amount of B12 in your diet. You will be more susceptible to tinnitus if you get less than this. But getting more vitamin B12 isn’t necessarily going to make your ears healthier. Getting too little or too much of these nutrients could be harmful to your hearing, so always talk with your doctor about any supplements you consume.
• Safeguarding your ears takes many strategies: As reported by this research, eating a good diet can help lower your susceptibility to tinnitus and other inner ear conditions. That doesn’t mean you’re not still at risk. It just gives you better odds of preventing ear conditions. You’ll need a more comprehensive approach if you really want to be protected from the risk of tinnitus. This will frequently mean safeguarding your hearing from loud noise by wearing earplugs or earmuffs
• Nutrients are important: Your diet is going to have an impact on your hearing health. It sure seems like an overall healthy diet will be good for your ears. So it’s not hard to see how problems like tinnitus can be a result of poor nutrition. This can be particularly important to note when individuals aren’t getting the nutrients, vitamins, and minerals that they need.

Research is one thing, real life is another

While this is exciting research, it’s important to mention that there’s more to be said on the matter. In order to verify and improve the scope of these results, more research will still have to be carried out. How much of this relationship is causal and how much is correlational is still something that needs to be identified, for example.

So we’re far from claiming that a vitamin B12 shot will stop tinnitus. It could mean taking a multi-faceted approach in order to prevent tinnitus in the first place. Diet can be one of those facets, certainly (eat that banana). But it’s crucial that you don’t forget about proven techniques, and that you concentrate on safeguarding your ear health as much as you can.

If you’re suffering from tinnitus, contact us. We can help.

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References

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/tinnitus/symptoms-causes
https://journals.lww.com/ear-hearing/Fulltext/2020/03000/Relationship_Between_Diet,_Tinnitus,_and_Hearing.8.aspx