Hearing loss ‘rising among teenage girls’

Noise-induced hearing loss is rising among teenage girls, according to the results of a new study.

Researchers from Harvard University found that teen hearing loss has decreased among boys but increased by over five per cent in girls, with 16.7 per cent of females and 17.7 per cent of males experiencing hearing loss by the age of 19 between 2005-08.

The analysis of data from the US also showed that 18.5 per cent of teenagers had significant hearing loss by the age of 19 between 1988-1994, although this had dropped to 17.7 per cent by the 2005-08 period.

This was somewhat surprising due to the link between teenage hearing loss and listening to music on headphones and the increased amount of teens that now do so.

Meanwhile, scientists from the University of California (UC) Berkeley, UC San Francisco and Johns Hopkins University have found that the brain has the ability to silence and amplify the sounds we make and hear, enabling humans to better hear themselves speak.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 29th, 2010 at 1:00 am and is filed under Audiology, EAR PROTECTION. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.