Hearing Loss and Dementia - Causation or Correlation or?

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #1

I’m leaving this in Keto Chat for now but will be citing scientific studies, etc as applicable. I hope others will do so as well.

I have major hearing loss in both ears and use hearing aids to deal with it. The aids help - somewhat. I still have difficulty understanding speech and lots of trouble understanding anyone on the phone. The past couple of days or so I’ve been participating in a couple of conversations on the forum related to keto and neurodegeneration, specifically Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. In researching studies and articles I ran across information elsewhere that hearing loss is commonly associated with dementia, ie neurodegeneration. Whether the relationship is causative or simply correlated remains undetermined.

According to current understanding, at my age of 75 and my degree of hearing loss I am at 5x greater risk of dementia than the general population! 5X

Maybe others here are in the same boat. So I want to talk about it. I want to explore whether or not there’s any evidence that keto might help or not. There’s lots of evidence that keto can help neurodegeneration generally, maybe slow it, maybe stop it, maybe prevent it. Where does dementia fit in this spectrum?

Dementia

A loss of brain function that can be caused by a variety of disorders affecting the brain. Symptoms include forgetfulness, impaired thinking and judgment, personality changes, agitation and loss of emotional control. Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease and inadequate blood flow to the brain can all cause dementia. Most types of dementia are irreversible.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #2

The final Comment section of this study is very interesting from several perspectives. Discussion of: Measured extent of cognitive decline and associated hearing loss; possible non-disease factors that could affect the observations; whether there might be a shared neuropathologic origin underlying both hearing loss and cognitive decline; possible role of social isolation cognitive load; whether hearing aid use helps.

This last I find discouraging. It’s the actual loss of hearing that’s implicated in the association with accelerated cognitive decline - whether or not you’ve got miniature ‘smart’ amplifiers stuffed in your ears to help you hear and understand what you’re hearing.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #3

A relative risk of the magnitude you mention is significant enough to take seriously. While I doubt that dementia causes hearing loss, or vice versa, it is indeed plausible that they could have a common cause, such as metabolic damage to nerve cells from overconsumption of glucose (i.e., carbohydrate). This is, I hasten to warn everyone, complete speculation on my part, so don’t take it as Gospel.

One thing to consider, however, is the profound effect that hearing loss has on people. For one thing, if you can’t hear what’s going on around you, your responses are going to appear off, to observers, simply because you aren’t following the conversation. I’ve seen that happen. For another thing, deafness is profoundly isolating, and I’m sure that can have a bad effect on people’s mental state, and perhaps even their cognition, from the lack of stimulation.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #4

One of my reasons for working at Walmart is to force myself to interact with others. I could easily retreat into monastic solitude. Another reason is to force myself to deal with problems, which at Walmart arise many times per shift. I tell myself as often as I have to that risk is not fate.