A new research from Taiwan suggests that a sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) might be linked to underlying obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) which interrupts the breathing. Researchers found that people suffering sudden hearing loss were more likely to have an earlier diagnosis of sleep apnea.
Sleep apnea is typified by closing off of the airways during sleep, which escorts to recurring fall levels of oxygen in the blood, causing recurrent short wake-ups, together with snoring. Sleep apnea often treated using a mask and breathing device, known as CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure).
However, one of the most effective treatments for the condition is weight loss. Usually the deafness occurs only in one ear and majority of people regain their hearing after the duration of several weeks. Sometimes people are assisted by steroid treatment. But infrequently the hearing loss becomes more severe.
For their study, a team led by Dr Jau-Jiuan Sheu from Taipei Medical University Hospital, examined health records of one million people from Taiwan. They found that thirty-two hundred people had been diagnosed with SSNHL years between 2000 and 2008. To make comparison they picked out another five percent of the same age and sex without hearing loss to severe hearing loss.
Out of total nineteen thousand, about two hundred and fifty had been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) prior to occurrence of the episode of sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNH). While considering health and other lifestyle aspects which may be associated with sleep problems and hearing loss, they found men with SSNH were fifty percent more likely to have earlier sleep apnea diagnosis than men without hearing loss.
A sleep apnea researcher, Dr. Seva Polotsky, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore who was not involved in the new study stated, it is possible that sleep apnea, which is known to increase the buildup of plaque in blood vessels, could affect vessels in areas of the brain that control hearing or vessels that feed the nerves responsible for hearing.
However, more study will be required to find out whether something besides the apnea, itself, might explain an increased risk of deafness. Obviously it is not known from this paper whether treating apnea will reduce hearing loss or the chance of having hearing problems in the first place, added Dr Polotsky.
Lead author Dr Sheu and colleagues thought, however, that inflammation and changes in blood vessels linked to sleep apnea could contribute to the risk of deafness. The study findings were published in the Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.