Everybody loves the concept of a miracle cure that helps you live longer. As a matter of fact, a brief internet search will likely return thousands of such miracle remedies (if not more), each promising to help you live longer if you employ one simple trick. The healthcare community doesn’t endorse the vast majority of these supposed cures as they have no real medical basis.
Nonetheless, that doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything to positively impact your longevity. For instance, eating a healthy diet (particularly one low in sodium and saturated fats) or quitting smoking can significantly affect your expected lifespan.
This is also true of managing hearing loss by using hearing aids. And a multidisciplinary publication that focuses on healthy aging, called The Lancet Healthy Longevity, has recently released research that reinforces this. So, will using hearing aids to treat hearing loss help improve longevity? There’s a strong likelihood that it will according to this research.
Is hearing loss a health risk?
The relationship between your hearing health and your overall wellness is not necessarily new to researchers. The fact that untreated hearing loss can significantly raise your risk of experiencing cognitive decline is well founded, for example.
These risks, however, are generally unknown by most people. They think that hearing loss will only impact one facet of their lives and is a mere inconvenience. But when left untreated, hearing loss can pose bigger health concerns than a simple inconvenience.
Is there a connection between hearing aids and lifespan?
In most instances, treatment for hearing loss means wearing hearing aids as often as possible. So does this mean that you can reduce your risk of early death by using hearing aids? There is certainly a possibility, according to this recent study, that hearing aids can reduce your risk of early death. There is a 24% decrease in mortality risk for individuals with hearing loss who regularly use hearing aids, as revealed by this study. In other words, the people observed in the study who used hearing aids had a tendency to live longer.
Hearing aid advantages
The research published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity is not exactly definitive proof that hearing aids will help you have a longer life (though the study does strongly suggest a relationship). But we already have a large body of evidence about the many benefits of using hearing aids and this just adds to that body.
- Wearing your hearing aids can help improve cognition. This means that you (and your brain) will probably be less fatigued and healthier over time.
- You can prevent accidents and injuries by being more mindful of your environment.
- It will be easier to function in social situations. This will help your overall well-being by reducing your feelings of social separation.
- Hearing aids can help you enjoy day-to-day moments with friends and family, from going out to eat with colleagues to asking your grandchildren about their school day.
These are improvements to your quality of life that you’ll feel each time you wear your hearing aids. These are all great reasons to use hearing aids to manage your hearing loss.
Your overall health and well-being depend heavily on healthy hearing
The more we learn about the connections between hearing loss and the rest of your body, the more scientists have come to understand that your hearing is an exceptionally significant part of your total health and wellness. If you have hearing loss, getting diagnosed and using hearing aids can significantly decrease your early mortality risks.
Seeing a hearing specialist can help you identify whether you have hearing loss and the best way to treat it.