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. 2023 Aug 2;21(1):283.
doi: 10.1186/s12916-023-02998-1.

Ageing as risk factor for tinnitus and its complex interplay with hearing loss-evidence from online and NHANES data

Lisa Reisinger  1 , Fabian Schmidt  2 , Kaja Benz  2 , Lorenzo Vignali  3 , Sebastian Roesch  4 , Martin Kronbichler  2 , Nathan Weisz  2   5
Affiliations

Ageing as risk factor for tinnitus and its complex interplay with hearing loss-evidence from online and NHANES data

Lisa Reisinger et al. BMC Med. .

Abstract

Background: Tinnitus affects 10 to 15% of the population, but its underlying causes are not yet fully understood. Hearing loss has been established as the most important risk factor. Ageing is also known to accompany increased prevalence; however, the risk is normally seen in context with (age-related) hearing loss. Whether ageing per se is a risk factor has not yet been established. We specifically focused on the effect of ageing and the relationship between age, hearing loss, and tinnitus.

Methods: We used two samples for our analyses. The first, exploratory analyses comprised 2249 Austrian individuals. The second included data from 16,008 people, drawn from a publicly available dataset (NHANES). We used logistic regressions to investigate the effect of age on tinnitus.

Results: In both samples, ageing per se was found to be a significant predictor of tinnitus. In the more decisive NHANES sample, there was an additional interaction effect between age and hearing loss. Odds ratio analyses show that per unit increase of hearing loss, the odds of reporting tinnitus is higher in older people (1.06 vs 1.03).

Conclusions: Expanding previous findings of hearing loss as the main risk factor for tinnitus, we established ageing as a risk factor in its own right. Underlying mechanisms remain unclear, and this work calls for urgent research efforts to link biological ageing processes, hearing loss, and tinnitus. We therefore suggest a novel working hypothesis that integrates these aspects from an ageing brain viewpoint.

Keywords: Ageing; Brain age; Hearing loss; Tinnitus.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Descriptives and logistic regression model of the Salzburg dataset. A Distribution of tinnitus over age and mean hearing loss. B Age characterisation was based on the median age of 55 years. The results showed enhanced tinnitus probability in older individuals compared to younger people over mean hearing loss scores
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Descriptives of the NHANES dataset. A Distribution of tinnitus over age and mean hearing threshold. B Proportion of tinnitus and hearing loss in different age groups
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Logistic regression model of the NHANES dataset. Age characterisation was based on the median age of 34 years. The results showed enhanced tinnitus probability in older individuals compared to younger people over mean hearing loss scores
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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