Baby boomers – or at least baby boomers in Wisconsin -- are aging with much better hearing than their parents had at the same age, new research shows.
In the first large-scale study of the hearing of people born before and after the baby boom, researchers from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health have found that baby boomers are holding on to hearing longer than their parents did.
The data, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, comes from the Epidemiology of Hearing Loss Study, which has been tracking hearing loss in volunteers from a single community, Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, since 1993.
All of the 5,275 participants were born between 1902 and 1962 and were residents of Beaver Dam, Wis., while their sons and daughters who were also tested lived in a variety of places.
The study found hearing impairment rates are lower among baby boomers than they were among older generations when they were the age baby boomers are now.
For example, in the group of men now in their early 60s (those born between 1944 and 1949), only 36.4 per cent had a hearing impairment. Among men born between 1930 and 1935, 58.1 per cent had a hearing impairment by the time they reached their early 60s.
If baby boomers were losing their hearing at the same rate their parents did, about 65.5 million Americans would be hearing-impaired by 2030; this new study suggests the number is likely to be closer to 50.9 million.
"Contrary to what our parents thought, we didn't lose our hearing from listening to transistor radios in the '60s, ‘boom boxes’ in the ‘80s or iPods in the last decade," says study author Dr. Karen Cruickshanks, a professor of population health sciences at UW School of Medicine and Public Health.
The researchers say they don’t yet know why hearing loss rates have fallen. Cruickshanks says the explanation will probably be complex and arise from a number of factors, perhaps including:
- better health care and use of antibiotics to clear up infections that can destroy hearing
- stricter rules about workplace noise exposure
- fewer of the younger generation working in noisy workplaces, such as mining and manufacturing.
- a decline in smoking -- a habit sometimes linked to ear damage.
Cruickshanks says the good news is that the data suggest that hearing loss doesn't have to accompany aging.
"If hearing loss were genetically determined, you wouldn't see this loss over a generation," she said. "It's exciting to know that there are things we can do to prevent or delay hearing loss."
Dr. Wen Chen, of the National Institute on Aging Division of Neuroscience, says the study suggests that more research is needed on what helps seniors hold on to their hearing.
"These encouraging findings should spark future research to help us better understand the factors that favour preservation of hearing function, and that will allow development of strategies to prevent hearing loss and the associated functional declines in older adults."
