In a recent study, risk increased 57 percent for every 10-dB increase in speech-reception threshold<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
By Lori Solomon HealthDay Reporter<\/b>
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TUESDAY, Jan. 21, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Hearing impairment is a risk factor for incident Parkinson disease (PD), according to a study published online in the February issue of Parkinsonism and Related Disorders<\/em>.<\/p>\n Megan Rose Readman, Ph.D., from Lancaster University in the United Kingdom, and colleagues assessed whether hearing impairment is a risk factor for PD incidence. The analysis included 159,395 individuals participating in the U.K. Biobank who underwent the Digit Triplet Test and were free of PD at baseline.<\/p>\n The researchers found 810 cases of probable PD during a median follow-up of 14.24 years, with the risk for incident PD increasing with baseline hearing impairment (hazard ratio, 1.57 for every 10-dB increase in speech-reception threshold). When hearing impairment was categorized in accordance with U.K. Biobank speech-reception threshold norms, neither “insufficient” nor “poor” hearing significantly influenced PD risk compared with “normal” hearing.<\/p>\n “The congruence of the findings obtained here with prior evidence further support the assumption that hearing impairment and Parkinson’s are related through a common neurological cause,” the authors write. “These findings have significant implications for clinical practice; however, sample limitations necessitate further analyses in alternative populations to substantiate these findings prior to clinical recommendations being made.”<\/p>\n