Everyone loves the concept of a miracle cure that helps you live longer. As a matter of fact, a quick internet search will likely return thousands of such miracle remedies (if not more), each promising to help you live longer if you employ one simple trick. The healthcare community doesn’t back most of these supposed cures as they have no real medical basis.
However, that doesn’t mean that nothing you do can positively impact your lifespan. For example, eating a healthy diet (specifically one low in sodium and saturated fats) or quitting smoking can dramatically affect your expected lifespan.
This is also true of managing hearing loss by wearing hearing aids. That’s in line with recent research published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity, a multidisciplinary publication committed to healthy aging. So, can hearing aids help you live longer? There’s a strong possibility that it will according to this study.
Is hearing loss a health threat?
Researchers have been aware of the link between overall wellness and hearing health for quite a while. For instance, it has been well established that untreated hearing loss can significantly raise your risk of dementia later in life.
Many people, however, are unaware of these risks. They think about hearing loss as an isolated inconvenience, something that only affects one very specific facet of their life. But the truth is that hearing loss is more than a simple nuisance, particularly when neglected.
The connection between longevity and hearing loss
In most instances, treatment for hearing loss means using hearing aids as much as possible. from this perspective, do hearing aids reduce the risk of early death? According to this most recent research, possibly. There is a 24% reduction in mortality risk for people with hearing loss who regularly use hearing aids, as revealed by this study. The participants in this study, in other words, who wore their hearing aids, tended to live longer.
The benefits of hearing aids
Though The Lancet Healthy Longevity study strongly suggests a connection between hearing health and longevity, it doesn’t absolutely prove that wearing hearing aids will help you live longer. But we already have a large body of evidence about the many benefits of using hearing aids and this just adds to that body.
- Hearing aids can help you enjoy day-to-day moments with friends and family, from going out to eat with colleagues to asking your grandchildren about their school day.
- It will be easier to function in social situations. This will help your general well-being by reducing your feelings of social solitude.
- You can prevent accidents and injuries by being more mindful of your environment.
- Cognition can be enhanced by using hearing aids. This means that you (and your brain) will likely be less exhausted and healthier over time.
Whenever you use your hearing aids, you will experience these improvements to your life. For these reasons alone, hearing aids are a significant part of managing your hearing loss.
Hearing is an important part of your health and wellness
The more we discover about the relationships between hearing loss and the rest of your body, the more scientists have come to recognize that your hearing is an exceptionally important part of your general health and wellness. Your risk of early mortality can be decreased by treating any hearing loss you might have with hearing aids.
Seeing a hearing specialist can help you determine whether you have hearing loss and the best way to treat it.