Investigators seem to have discovered how loud noise can lead to hearing loss. The team also said the issue could be mitigated with a medication that could one day be available over the counter.
In a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Thanos Tzounopoulos, PhD, director of the Pittsburgh Hearing Research Center at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and his team say that noise-induced hearing loss is a result of cellular damage in the inner ear that is linked to having too much free-floating zinc. The mineral is a must for proper cellular function and hearing.
That’s why his team conducted experiments in mice, isolating cells from the inner ear. Zinc levels soared hours after the mice were exposed to loud noise. The loud noise caused a significant release of zinc into the extra and intracellular space, which then went on to damage cells and disrupt normal cell-to-cell communication.
Armed with that knowledge, the team sought out solutions. The team gave mice a slow-releasing compound to trap excess zine. When they gave it to mice and exposed them to excessive noise, the mice didn’t have the extra zinc floating about. The treatment protected the mice from hearing damage.
The team is working on a treatment to be tested in preclinical studies for humans. It will hopefully be available as an over-the-counter option for people, the researchers said. In theory, it would work the same as it did in the mice, trapping the excess zinc that can damage cells and cause noise-induced hearing loss.
“Noise-induced hearing loss impairs millions of lives but, because the biology of hearing loss is not fully understood, preventing hearing loss has been an ongoing challenge,” Tzounopoulos said in a statement.
Some people get hearing loss as a result of an injury to their ears. But others have sudden hearing impairment after being exposed to loud noise continuously, such as on a battlefield or a construction site. People can also tell if their hearing seems to deteriorate after going to a loud music show. The hearing loss can be debilitating, the team noted. Some people report hearing sounds that aren’t there after they experience hearing loss. Hearing loss can affect a person’s quality of life tremendously, the researchers noted.
