Cigarette Smoking Passive Smoking Alcohol Consum

Authors: Piers Dawes Karen J Cruickshanks David R Moore Mark EdmondsonJones Abby McCormack Heather Fortnum Kevin J Munro

Publish Date: 2014/05/28

Volume: 15, Issue: 4, Pages: 663-674

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Abstract

The objective of this large populationbased crosssectional study was to evaluate the association between smoking passive smoking alcohol consumption and hearing loss The study sample was a subset of the UK Biobank Resource 164770 adults aged between 40 and 69 years who completed a speechinnoise hearing test the Digit Triplet Test Hearing loss was defined as speech recognition in noise in the better ear poorer than 2 standard deviations below the mean with reference to young normally hearing listeners In multiple logistic regression controlling for potential confounders current smokers were more likely to have a hearing loss than nonsmokers odds ratio OR 115 95  confidence interval CI 109–121 Among nonsmokers those who reported passive exposure to tobacco smoke were more likely to have a hearing loss OR 128 95 CI 121–135 For both smoking and passive smoking there was evidence of a doseresponse effect Those who consume alcohol were less likely to have a hearing loss than lifetime teetotalers The association was similar across three levels of consumption by volume of alcohol lightest 25  OR 061 95 CI 057–065 middle 50  OR 062 95 CI 058–066 heaviest 25  OR 065 95 CI 061–070 The results suggest that lifestyle factors may moderate the risk of hearing loss Alcohol consumption was associated with a protective effect Quitting or reducing smoking and avoiding passive exposure to tobacco smoke may also help prevent or moderate agerelated hearing lossThank you to Dr David Nondahl for statistical advice DRM was supported by the intramural program of the Medical Research Council grant U135097130 KJC was supported by R37AG11099 R01AG021917 and an unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness The Nottingham Hearing Biomedical Research Unit is funded by the National Institute for Health Research This paper presents independent research funded in part by the National Institute for Health Research NIHR The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NHS the NIHR or the Department of Health This research was facilitated by the Manchester Biomedical Research Centre This research was conducted using the UK Biobank Resource

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