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Topical Area: Aging and Chronic Disease

Aging and Chronic Disease (Poster Session)

(P23-050-23) Dietary Pattern and Risk of Hearing Loss: An Investigation of a Bi-Racial Cohort Among Older Adults

Monday, July 24, 2023
12:45 PM – 1:45 PM ET
Location: Poster Board 48

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Xiaoran Liu, Assistant Professor

    Assistant Professor
    Rush Institute for Healthy Aging, Rush University Medical Center
    Chicago, Illinois, United States

    • Co-Author(s)

  • UA

    Uzma Akhtar

    Communication Disorders & Sciences, Rush University

  • TB

    Todd Beck

    Rush Institute for Healthy Aging, Rush University Medical Center

  • KR

    Kumar B. Rajan

    Rush Institute for Healthy Aging, Rush University Medical Center

Disclosure(s):
Xiaoran Liu, Assistant Professor: No relevant financial relationship(s) with ineligible companies to disclose.


Objectives: Hearing loss poses a global public health burden and contributes to cognitive decline. Additionally, hearing loss and cognition are both mediated by dietary factors. Therefore, we aim 1) to examine the association between diet and risk of hearing loss among older adults and 2) to characterize these associations by race/ethnicity.

Methods: We included 4,937 participants (62% Black, 63% female) from the Chicago Health and Aging Project. Self-reported hearing loss was assessed at each cycle of data collection. Diet was assessed by a 144-item FFQ. Discrete-time survival models were adjusted for age, sex, race, smoking status, social and economic status, calorie intake, cognitive function, BMI, number of chronic medical conditions, and hearing aid use.

Results: A total of 406 participants developed hearing loss, including 207 Black adults and 199 Whites. One point increase in the DASH and MIND scores was associated with 14% (95% CI: 0.79, 0.94, P=0.0005) and 7% (95% CI: 0.87, 0.99, P=0.02) lower risk for hearing loss, respectively. The association between diet and hearing loss was also race-specific. Among White adults, MIND (HR: 0.87 [95% CI: 0.79, 0.95], P=0.03), Mediterranean (HR: 0.96 [95% CI: 0.93, 0.99], P=0.03, and DASH diets (HR: 0.80 [95% CI: 0.70, 0.91], P=0.0008) were all significantly associated with lower risk of hearing loss, whereas Western diet was associated with a higher risk of hearing loss (HR: 1.20 [95% CI: 1.05, 1.36], P=0.006]. Among Black adults, we found no significant association, although the DASH diet was suggestive of a protective association of hearing loss (HR: 0.89 [95% CI: 0.79, 1.00], P = 0.06).

Conclusions: Healthy dietary patterns were associated with a lower risk of hearing loss for White but not Black participants. These findings suggest that improving dietary quality may lower the risk of hearing loss in older adults, particularly among Whites. However, additional studies are warranted to understand race, diet, and hearing interaction.

Funding Sources: This work was supported by grants R01AG03154, R01AG051635, RF1AG057532, and R01AG058679 from the National Institutes of Health. Martha Clare Morris Emerging Young Investigator Award. Alzheimer’s Association Research Grant AARG-22-928311.