If You're Worried About Your Hearing, You May Want To Ease Up On Caffeine

Science has yet again proven to be the most simultaneously fascinating and frustrating discipline in existence by demonstrating a link between daily caffeine consumption and impaired recovery after noise-induced hearing loss.

In another example of people in lab coats taking all the fun out of life (for our benefit), a new study conducted by the Research Institute at the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal, Canada, obtained the results after exposing two groups of animal subjects to sound emitted at 110dB — roughly equivalent to a rock concert — for an hour, resulting in a temporary hearing reduction also known as auditory temporary threshold shift.

According to RI-MUHC scientist Dr Faisal Zawawi, "This disorder is usually reversible in the first 72 hours after the exposure but, if symptoms persist, the damage could become permanent."

From there, one group was administered a daily dose of caffeine — 25mg/kg — while the second was left alone. The animals were monitored over the next 15 days; after the first day, both groups were suffering comparable hearing loss but, by day eight, the researchers say the caffeine-free test group had almost totally recovered, while those that had been given the substance were still suffering from hearing degeneration across multiple frequencies.

As the university reports, the study came around in the wake of earlier research that had given rise to suspicions among the scientists that auditory recovery may be impeded by particular substances, including caffeine. Given the ubiquity of caffeine (and excessive noise) in daily Western society — the report cites a figure of 80% of the adult population consuming caffeine in high-enough amounts to have an effect on the brain — the team felt it was an area worth exploring further. Which is probably a good thing, given how it all panned out.

"Our research confirmed that exposure to loud auditory stimuli, coupled with daily consumption of 25mg/kg of caffeine, had a clear negative impact on hearing recovery," Zawawi said, with the RI-MUHC noting that "further research is required to understand the effects on humans, [but] the results are promising".

See more about the study at the RI-MUHC's website.