Markers of inflammatory status associated with hearing threshold in older people: findings from the Herfordshire ageing study
Markers of inflammatory status associated with hearing threshold in older people: findings from the Herfordshire ageing study
Background: age-related hearing loss is a common disabling condition but it causes are not well understood and the role of inflammation as an influencing factor has received little consideration in the literature.
Objective: to investigate the association between inflammatory markers and hearing in community dwelling older men and women.
Design: cross-sectional analysis within a cohort study.
Setting: the Hertfordshire Ageing Study.
Participants: 343 men and 268 women aged 63 to 74 years on whom data on audiometric testing, inflammatory markers and covariates were available at follow-up in 1995.
Main outcome measures: average hearing threshold level (across 500 to 4000 Hz) of the worst hearing ear and audiometric slope in dB/octave from 500 to 4000Hz.
Results: older age, smoking, history of noise exposure and male gender (all p<0.001) were associated with higher mean hearing threshold in the worse ear in univariate analysis. After adjustment for these factors in multiple regression models, four measures of immune or inflammatory status were significantly associated with hearing threshold, namely white blood cell count (r=0.13,p=0.001), neutrophil count (r=0.13,p=0.002), IL-6 (r=0.10,p=0.05) and CRP (r=0.11,p=0.01). None of the inflammatory markers were associated with maximum audiometric slope in adjusted analyses.
Conclusions: markers of inflammatory status were significantly associated with degree of hearing loss in older people. The findings are consistent with the possibility that inflammatory changes occurring with ageing may be involved in age-related hearing loss. Longitudinal data would enable this hypothesis to be explored further
hearing, age-related hearing loss, presbycusis, inflamation, ageing, older people, elderly
92-97
Verschuur, C.A.
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Dowell, Aphra
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Syddall, H.E.
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Ntani, Georgia
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Simmonds, S.J.
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Baylis, D.
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Gale, C.R.
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Walsh, B.
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Cooper, Cyrus
e05f5612-b493-4273-9b71-9e0ce32bdad6
Lord, Janet M.
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Sayer, A.A.
fb4c2053-6d51-4fc1-9489-c3cb431b0ffb
January 2012
Verschuur, C.A.
5e15ee1c-3a44-4dbe-ad43-ec3b50111e41
Dowell, Aphra
6b69b2ab-130d-4736-b289-b9f85bc45b64
Syddall, H.E.
a0181a93-8fc3-4998-a996-7963f0128328
Ntani, Georgia
9b009e0a-5ab2-4c6e-a9fd-15a601e92be5
Simmonds, S.J.
2214e6b5-868a-4dae-8491-fca5d5a8ecb8
Baylis, D.
81f774ef-9139-48bd-8360-d20ebedaa492
Gale, C.R.
5bb2abb3-7b53-42d6-8aa7-817e193140c8
Walsh, B.
5818243e-048d-4b4b-88c5-231b0e419427
Cooper, Cyrus
e05f5612-b493-4273-9b71-9e0ce32bdad6
Lord, Janet M.
29f3ed31-5762-4b3f-aca5-3d1049d26830
Sayer, A.A.
fb4c2053-6d51-4fc1-9489-c3cb431b0ffb
Verschuur, C.A., Dowell, Aphra, Syddall, H.E., Ntani, Georgia, Simmonds, S.J., Baylis, D., Gale, C.R., Walsh, B., Cooper, Cyrus, Lord, Janet M. and Sayer, A.A.
(2012)
Markers of inflammatory status associated with hearing threshold in older people: findings from the Herfordshire ageing study.
Age and Ageing, 41 (1), .
(doi:10.1093/ageing/afr140).
Abstract
Background: age-related hearing loss is a common disabling condition but it causes are not well understood and the role of inflammation as an influencing factor has received little consideration in the literature.
Objective: to investigate the association between inflammatory markers and hearing in community dwelling older men and women.
Design: cross-sectional analysis within a cohort study.
Setting: the Hertfordshire Ageing Study.
Participants: 343 men and 268 women aged 63 to 74 years on whom data on audiometric testing, inflammatory markers and covariates were available at follow-up in 1995.
Main outcome measures: average hearing threshold level (across 500 to 4000 Hz) of the worst hearing ear and audiometric slope in dB/octave from 500 to 4000Hz.
Results: older age, smoking, history of noise exposure and male gender (all p<0.001) were associated with higher mean hearing threshold in the worse ear in univariate analysis. After adjustment for these factors in multiple regression models, four measures of immune or inflammatory status were significantly associated with hearing threshold, namely white blood cell count (r=0.13,p=0.001), neutrophil count (r=0.13,p=0.002), IL-6 (r=0.10,p=0.05) and CRP (r=0.11,p=0.01). None of the inflammatory markers were associated with maximum audiometric slope in adjusted analyses.
Conclusions: markers of inflammatory status were significantly associated with degree of hearing loss in older people. The findings are consistent with the possibility that inflammatory changes occurring with ageing may be involved in age-related hearing loss. Longitudinal data would enable this hypothesis to be explored further
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More information
e-pub ahead of print date: 14 November 2011
Published date: January 2012
Keywords:
hearing, age-related hearing loss, presbycusis, inflamation, ageing, older people, elderly
Organisations:
Human Sciences Group
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 191217
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/191217
ISSN: 0002-0729
PURE UUID: 68da31e1-e467-433c-a089-b26587c30e3c
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Date deposited: 17 Jun 2011 12:32
Last modified: 18 Mar 2024 02:49
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Contributors
Author:
Aphra Dowell
Author:
S.J. Simmonds
Author:
D. Baylis
Author:
Janet M. Lord
Author:
A.A. Sayer
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