Comorbidities of Hearing Loss

Part 1: Diabetes and Hearing Loss

Are you diabetic or prediabetic? If you answered yes, regular hearing testing should be incorporated into your ongoing healthcare routine.

Diabetes is a vascular disease that can affect blood vessels throughout the body, which includes the ear and all of the organs within the ear. Research shows that hearing loss is twice as common in people with diabetes and 30% higher in those with prediabetes compared to those without the disease. Because diabetes increases the risk of hearing loss, the CDC recommends annual hearing testing for persons with diabetes.

Impacts of Untreated Hearing Loss

  • Untreated hearing loss
    • Causes compromised speech perception, and often causes one to become isolated, less social, lonely, and depressed.
    • Increases the chance of decreased cognition, which can cause reduced physical function and quality of life, which increases the risk of developing dementia.
    • Can hinder work performance impacting promotions and/or salary potential.
    • Puts you at a higher risk of missing emergency signals/sirens and increases your risk of falling.

While hearing healthcare seems to be at the bottom of the healthcare checklist for many, at a minimum one should have a baseline hearing test between the ages of 40 and 50. Once a baseline has been established, your audiologist will provide a suggested plan for future testing based on any health conditions identified, potential for increased time in noisy environments, and current hearing levels.

Hearing healthcare is an important part of your overall wellbeing and should be checked at regular intervals especially if you are diabetic or prediabetic. For more detailed information on diabetes and the increased risk of hearing loss, please refer to these resources: