Most replayed moment: The hidden dangers of hearing loss | Prof. Marcelo Rivolta

0:00Hello, and welcome to Zoe Recap, where each week we find the best bits from one of our podcast episodes to help you improve your health. The world around us is louder than ever. From booming speakers to roaring traffic, our ears can take quite a beating. But have you ever stopped to consider the long-term impact of all this noise? Because hearing loss isn't just about your ears. Emerging research suggests it could also affect your brain health in surprising ways. I'm joined by Dr. Marcelo Revolta to explore how noise exposure can cause lasting damage. He shares the early warning signs to look out for, what to do if your hearing begins to decline, and simple steps you can take to protect these vital organs on the side of your head.

0:47What's it like to suffer hearing loss and how does it impact your life?

0:52Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:It can have a very, very substantial impact. One of the things, and I think probably a lot of people in the audience may relate to this, you start having to put the volume up in certain devices because you cannot get the same kind of information as that kind of healing that you've had before. But that, in a way, is more of a symptom. The thing when it starts impacting your life is when it starts affecting your communication with other people. There is a very telling sentence that Helen Keller, who was a teacher, suffered from blindness and healing loss in the first part of the 20th century. And because she was blind and deaf, she was asked which one was impacting her life more, the loss of sight or the loss of hearing.

1:33Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:And she very poignantly said, and I'm paraphrasing here, but it was without a doubt hearing because blindness sort of cuts you off from things around you. But hearing cuts you from people because it affects communication. conversation you go to a pub to have a conversation with some friends and all of a sudden you are in that very loud environment and you cannot understand what they are saying and you start asking sort of for them to repeat things and after a while you just feel embarrassed you don't want to ask the same thing over and over again and then you start feeling more withdrawn more ostracized and then you stop going to the pub because I can't I can't hear what they are saying I can't have a conversation.

2:15Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:And that is impacting your ability to communicate, your ability to interact, but force you to kind of almost withdraw from your social life. And that has a huge impact on your daily life and on your future sort of welfare as well, your social interaction. How does that then affect your health? One of the things that healing loss has been shown in the last few years, and there is an increasing volume of research, identifying a link between, for example, healing loss and dementia. Roughly, it is said for those people that develop severe hearing loss in sort of midlife, they have a five-fold enhanced risk of developing dementia later on.

2:57They have a five-fold higher risk of getting dementia if you get hearing loss.

3:02Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:If you get severe hearing loss. If you have a moderate hearing loss, it's about two-fold the risk later in life. Why is that? It is still not clear. There are different theories trying to explain this. One is cognitive overload. You need to make more effort to listen and to understand, so your brain uses a lot more brain power, to call it in a simple way, and that sort of produces kind of a more intense sort of work there. There are other theories that perhaps the conditions that lead to develop healing loss are underpinning and underline the condition that will develop dementia as well. So whatever the explanation and the justification of the link is, it's clear that the link seems to be there.

3:46Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:And we can minimize that risk by intervening early with your hearing loss. We just start feeling that you are losing your sense of hearing. I find it rather extraordinary that hearing loss should have such a big impact because we've done podcasts talking about dementia and people are often talking about this thing is like a 30 % increase or a 40 % increase in risk. So it's like fivefold is enormous. It is one of the highest sort of links, but also one of the things that can be modified because other things like, for example, genetics are more difficult to impact. But healing loss is one of those that is something that can be done in order to prevent the higher risk later in life.

4:26If I was having hearing loss, but then I had some sort of device that meant that I can hear better, does that reduce the risk of dementia?

4:35Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:Yes. Even with the devices which are currently available, for example, the use of hearing aids, they reduce the risk because this theory of the cognitive overload, if you need to make a lot more effort to understand what people are saying and use a lot more of your brain space to follow a conversation, you reduce that. You take it back to more normal levels by using something as available as a hearing aid. So one theory is somehow my brain is doing so much work to try and understand a conversation that somehow its normal processes are being disrupted. Yeah, it's an overload that then tends to more wear and tear that then impacts.

5:12Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:That's one of the theories. But it seems to be one of the more prevalent theories at the moment. And so therefore, if I can use some sort of device that makes it easier to understand, then my brain can continue to function in a healthier way. Well, it's definitely a very big argument, I guess, for looking after our hearing and thinking about it. It makes me feel like I should probably take my hearing more seriously than I have done. It's a shame I'm already 50. I probably should have had this conversation with myself when I was 16. How worried should I be about, for example, going to a really loud concert for two hours?

5:46Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:The more precautions you can have, the better. If you're going to go to a very loud concert, you can use some ear defenses, some earplugs that will sort of attenuate the intensity of the sound. If you're listening to music in your headphones, turn the volume down a little bit. Very loud blasts can have permanent damage. And what about when I'm walking past the person digging up the road with a pneumatic drill? Because I was just thinking about that. I had that experience only last week and was thinking, wow, that is really loud. Yeah, sometimes just protecting your ears with your fingers. Sometimes it's a very loud bang.

6:25Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:they're completely caught by surprise and unprepared. But it's something that you can see it coming or hear it coming. Then you can at least try to minimize it. So I'd love to sort of conclude with your advice to anyone who's thinking today, how can I reduce my risk of either developing hearing loss or having my hearing loss get worse? What would your practical advice be? Yes, absolutely. I think that's a very good point to conclude here. I would say that you have to protect your hearing. remember that those cells are your lifetime companion. So you have to look after them. You have to protect them.

7:02Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:Trying to be not exposed to very loud noises. Use the headphones in a very sensible way. But also, and this is also very important, when you start having symptoms of losing your hearing, do something about it. Go and see your GP. Go and see your audiologist. and they will advise if you need hearing aids. And if you need hearing aids, use them. We talked about how important is use of hearing aids to prevent the onset of dementia or sort of minimize reduce the risk of dementia. And we have to overcome, because that's something that I also like to mention, this kind of a stigma. We all have a certain time in our life.

7:44Prof. Marcelo Rivolta:We use sort of glasses and nobody blink an eye. If you have glasses, it's completely natural. However, it's not the same with hearing aids, and we need to overcome that presumption that, oh, hearing aids make you look different and make you look old. That's not true. It shouldn't be the case. Hearing aids are there to help, and if you need them, you should wear them.