[The effect of cardiovascular, endocrine and metabolic diseases on hearing]

Abstract

Internal diseases are often suspected of causing chronic hearing impairment. Such a consideration is often purely speculative. In our studies in 111 patients with injured coronaries (aged between 30 and 59 years) and in 90 patients with hypertension (aged between 16 and 60 years) we could find only small differences in the faculty of hearing compared to healthy persons of the same age. Coronary to a common opinion, coronary and hypertensive patients do not seem to be harder of hearing than healthy subjects. The paper reports on a few more publications. The findings on the ability of hearing in medical risk groups depend on audiometric standards that are selected for comparison. A note of warning should be sounded against any unqualified attempt to link chronic hearing impairment to diseases of the cardiovascular system, metabolism and hormone balance.