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This super common condition causes up to a third of all dementia cases — and treating it can delay onset
We’re all ears for promising developments in staving off Alzheimer’s.
Dementia affects more than 6 million Americans and accounts for more than 100,000 deaths each year, with a startling NYU Langone Health study published last month finding that the risk is as high as 35% for men and 48% for women after the age of 55.
But there is a note of hope amid all the bad news: Promising new research suggests that treating a super common condition early on could delay the onset of dementia for years.
Scientists from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland who tracked nearly 3,000 seniors with hearing loss discovered that roughly a third of all dementia cases could be attributed to the impairment.
Publishing their findings in the journal JAMA Otolaryngology, the research team noted, “This suggests that treating hearing loss may delay dementia for a large number of older adults.”
Researchers tracked 2,946 adults aged 65 and older over eight years and found 32% of all dementia cases could be attributed to diagnosed hearing loss.
For those with mild hearing loss, the risk of developing dementia was 16.2%. Among those with moderate to severe hearing loss, the risk increased to 16.6%.
The risk was slightly higher for women than for men, at 30.8% and 24%, respectively.
A higher number of cases attributed to hearing loss occurred in people aged 75 and above.
Self-reported hearing loss was substantially underestimated and was not associated with an increased risk of dementia.
Experts are uncertain whether hearing loss directly causes dementia or whether it creates other conditions that raise the risk.
The team is hopeful their findings will inspire changes in the way hearing loss is detected and treated.
“Public health interventions targeting clinically tested hearing loss might have broad benefits for dementia prevention,” they said.
This latest research comes on the heels of a landmark 2024 study from The Lancet that found nearly half of all Alzheimer’s cases could be delayed or prevented by addressing 14 risk factors.
In addition to hearing loss, risk factors of dementia include lower levels of education, high blood pressure, tobacco use, obesity, depression, diabetes, excess alcohol intake, traumatic brain injury, air pollution, social isolation, vision loss, high cholesterol and a sedentary lifestyle.
The Lancet study also included 13 recommendations to help reduce the risk of dementia. Among these suggestions was to make hearing aids accessible for people who need them and decrease harmful noise exposure to reduce hearing loss.
Only about 20% of US adults who would benefit from a hearing aid use one. That may be because hearing loss tends to be an invisible disease.
Recent research from the University of Michigan found that millions of Americans likely have dementia symptoms but no formal diagnosis, in part because patients misunderstand their symptoms as normal aging.
There’s no cure for dementia, but early detection can give patients and their caregivers time to plan for the future.
New research suggests that strength training can help guard against dementia by not only improving cognitive function but also altering the anatomy of the brain itself.
