WEIL: Vitamins take on hearing loss

By Dr. Andrew Weil

Published May 19, 2008 at 6 p.m.
Updated May 19, 2008 at 6:03 p.m.

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Question: What's this I hear about vitamins to protect against hearing loss? True?

Answer: Maybe so, but we won't know for sure until researchers confirm that what they've seen in animal studies holds up for humans.

Investigators at the University of Michigan found that giving high doses of vitamins A, C and E and mag- nesium to guinea pigs an hour before exposing them to excessive noise was protective. The noise was loud enough to induce hearing loss, and the vitamin and mineral doses were repeated once a day for five days.

The researchers reported that the combination of vitamins A, C and E and magnesium prevented the dam- age that leads to hearing loss and hypothesized that doses taken after noise exposure seem to have "scavenged" free radicals that continue to form even after noise exposure ends and can damage the inner ear.

If this formula works as well in humans as it did in animals, the Michigan researchers said, they envision combining the vitamins and magnesium into a nutrition bar to be given to soldiers for daily hearing protection in war zones. They also suggested that the nutrition bar could benefit people whose hearing is at risk because they work in noisy environments, frequently attend noisy events or habitually listen to loud music on their iPods. The Michigan study was published Feb. 20, 2007, online in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine.

The lead researcher is confident enough that the findings will hold up in humans to have launched a start- up company to develop the vitamin- magnesium combination.

Ask Dr. Weil a question at drweil.com.

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