More than 1.5 billion people worldwide have hearing loss! These common behaviors are very "damaging" to your hearing

March 3 is National Ear Care Day. How are your ears? Many factors, such as electronic products, ear cleaning, drug abuse, and high noise, can affect hearing to varying degrees. Let's learn about it together.

Compiled by New Media Editor Fang Yongzhen

Are your ears okay? According to the World Hearing Report released by the World Health Organization in March 2021, more than 1.5 billion people in the world have hearing loss. The report predicts that by 2050, a quarter of the world's population will have hearing problems, and nearly 2.5 billion people will suffer from some degree of hearing loss.

March 3 is National Ear Care Day. Please don’t neglect our ear health.

The ear is an organ with the function of "hearing". When sound passes through the ear and hits the eardrum, the vibration is transmitted and converted into an electrical signal, which is then transmitted to the brain through the auditory nerve and finally perceived as an acoustic stimulus. At this time, we hear the sound. In order to complete this series of tasks, the ear needs to have a sophisticated structure and complex functions.

But at the same time, the ear is also very vulnerable to "damage". There are many factors that lead to hearing loss, including ototoxic drugs, genetics, noise, infection and disease, etc., all of which may affect the normal function of the ear and cause varying degrees of hearing loss. Today we will introduce several common factors.

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Although it feels good to clean your ears, it is best not to do it often

Many people usually have the habit of cleaning their ears, closing their eyes and clenching their fists to enjoy this inexplicable feeling of pleasure. But why is cleaning ears so pleasant? This is because our external auditory canal is rich in nerve fibers, and the sense of touch is more sensitive. During the process of cleaning ears, the tactile receptors in the external auditory canal are activated, transmitting the itchy and comfortable signals to the brain. And after fiddling with it for a long time, you see a huge earwax in front of you, giving you a sense of accomplishment as if you have conquered the world, so many people enjoy it.

Although it is pleasant to pick your ears, the pleasure is insignificant compared to the risks and consequences. Gao Zhiqiang, director of the Department of Otolaryngology at Peking Union Medical College Hospital, said that improper ear picking can easily cause damage and infection to the external auditory canal, leading to a series of inflammations. The hard ear pick may also injure the eardrum or ossicles, causing perforation of the eardrum and affecting hearing. Every year, countless people go to the hospital because of ear picking.

In addition, this behavior may also cause cancer. The skin of our external auditory canal is relatively thin. If we often use hard objects to pick our ears, the skin of the ear canal will be damaged, and the defense mechanism of the external auditory canal will be destroyed. Some bacteria will take advantage of the opportunity to enter and cause external otitis. When the external auditory canal is repeatedly stimulated by the outside world and the external auditory canal inflammation is constantly repaired, some cells may mutate, thus causing the common external auditory canal squamous cell carcinoma in clinical practice.

But then again, looking at the pieces of stuff being dug out, will your ears get clogged if you don't clean them all the time? The answer is no. Earwax, which also has a fancy name "cerumen", is secreted by the cerumen glands in the external auditory canal. It is originally a light yellow viscous liquid, which becomes relatively dry when it comes into contact with the air. Its function is to protect the ear canal by sticking foreign objects, and it can also prevent bacteria from invading and protect the ear canal. Most people's earwax will fall off naturally with our movements such as exercise, chewing, and yawning. On the contrary, if you pick too frequently or use improper tools, it may cause damage to your ears.

But there are also some people who need to be cleaned manually. According to Lu Yingxia, deputy director and chief physician of the Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck Surgery at the Capital Institute of Pediatrics, a small number of people have narrow ear canals or thick earwax that is difficult to discharge on its own and will form lumps. This is why some people need to go to the hospital to clean their earwax.

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The harm of headphones to ears should not be underestimated

Headphones are almost a standard for modern people. Whether on the road, in the subway, on the bus, or in other noisy places, I believe you must have seen many pedestrians wearing headphones, and even saw people shaking their heads to the music in their headphones or singing along when they are very excited. Listening to music is certainly relaxing, but it should be noted that the wrong way to listen to music will have a negative impact on our ears.

The World Health Organization says that about 1.1 billion young people aged 12 to 35 are now at risk of irreversible hearing loss. One of the culprits is that the volume of music is higher than the safe level. Studies have shown that if headphones are used for a long time and at a high volume, it will cause very serious damage to the hair cells in the inner ear. The function of hair cells is to help us perceive sound. Their number is fixed at birth and they have no regeneration ability. Once damaged, it will cause irreversible damage to the user's hearing. Similarly, frequent visits to high-decibel places such as KTV, even if you stay in these high-decibel places for a short time, will cause damage to your hearing.

So how do you use headphones to listen to music correctly?

1. The "60-60-60" principle: The volume should be lower than 60% of the maximum volume, the headphone usage time should not exceed 60 minutes (some people think it should not exceed 30 minutes), and the external environment noise should not be higher than 60 decibels.

2. Don't wear headphones overnight. There are all kinds of strange sleeping positions, and pressing the headphones will cause physical damage to the ears. Secondly, if the music in the headphones is played all night, our ears will also work all night, which also increases the risk of hearing loss.

3. Avoid using headphones in noisy public places. When the surrounding environment is noisy, many people wearing headphones will subconsciously turn up the volume in order to hear the sound clearly, which will cause damage to the ears unknowingly.

4. Try to avoid in-ear headphones. Wearing in-ear headphones will cause an "ear blocking effect". The sound from the headphones will form a closed-circuit vibration in the ear canal, which is much more harmful than open-circuit sound.

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Hearing loss caused by abuse of ototoxic drugs

Some commonly used drugs are ototoxic drugs. If taken improperly, they may cause irreversible hearing loss. For a long time, incidents of hearing damage and acquired deafness caused by misuse of drugs have occurred from time to time.

What are ototoxic drugs? Ototoxic drugs are drugs that have the potential to cause structural damage to the inner ear, which can lead to temporary or permanent hearing loss and can worsen existing sensorineural hearing loss. If you already have sensorineural hearing loss, regardless of the cause, you are more likely to have your hearing loss worsened if you take ototoxic drugs.

There are many types of drugs known to be ototoxic, the most common of which are as follows:

(1) Antibiotics: Aminoglycoside antibiotics include gentamicin, streptomycin, kanamycin, neomycin, and metronidazole. The most common clinical case of drug-induced deafness is the use of aminoglycoside antibiotics. Macrolide antibiotics include erythromycin lactobionate. Other antibiotics include chloramphenicol, vancomycin hydrochloride, and so on.

(2) Anti-tumor drugs: cisplatin, nitrogen mustard, bleomycin, etc.

(3) Antipyretic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory drugs: acetylsalicylic acid, indomethacin, etc.

(4) Antimalarial drugs: chloroquine, quinine, etc.

(5) Diuretics: furosemide (Lasix), uric acid, etc.

Therefore, when you need to take medicine, you must follow your doctor's advice and remember not to take medicine indiscriminately.

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What causes sudden hearing loss?

In addition to gradual hearing loss, sudden hearing loss is also worrisome and is likely caused by illness. There are two common diseases in life that can cause acute hearing loss: sudden deafness and otitis media.

Although these two diseases have different causes and the nature of deafness is different, they have one thing in common: once the disease occurs, timely medical treatment is needed, and timely treatment will give you a chance to restore your hearing.

Sudden deafness is a type of sensorineural hearing loss. The exact cause is still unclear. It is generally believed that it may be related to fatigue, lack of sleep, emotional disorders, decreased resistance, etc.

Sudden deafness can happen anytime and anywhere. Once it occurs, early treatment is the key. If you suddenly experience unexplained stuffiness in one ear, or varying degrees of hearing loss, you must pay attention and see an ENT doctor as soon as possible.

If sudden deafness is treated early, doctors can give oral hormones, infusions and other medications, with a 70-80% chance of restoring hearing. However, if it is not discovered and treated early, and it is delayed for more than three months after the onset of the disease, the possibility of restoring hearing is relatively small. Once the best treatment period is missed, it is likely that deafness will remain.

Speaking of otitis media, I believe everyone is familiar with it. According to the length of the course of the disease, it can be divided into acute and chronic otitis media. According to the nature, it can be divided into secretory otitis media, suppurative otitis media and some special types of otitis media.

Taking common suppurative otitis media as an example, many patients experience stuffy ears, ear pain or mild hearing loss after catching a cold. At first, they did not pay attention to it. As the symptoms intensified, the eardrum perforated, pus in the ear, and hearing loss worsened. This situation belongs to acute suppurative otitis media. For acute otitis media, after timely anti-infection treatment, the perforation of most patients can heal and hearing can be restored.

▲Normal eardrum (left) and perforated eardrum (right) (Image source: WeChat official account of "Peking University Third Hospital")

Some patients have long-term hearing loss, perforation and pus discharge, which is usually chronic otitis media. Once diagnosed with otitis media and tympanic membrane perforation, and the tympanic membrane perforation lasts for more than three months, surgery should be performed as soon as possible to repair the tympanic membrane.

Tympanic membrane perforation can cause repeated middle ear inflammation and pus discharge, and long-term inflammation can lead to the destruction of the middle ear ossicular structure, gradually damaging hearing and making hearing worse. Timely surgical treatment can prevent inflammation, protect the middle ear ossicular chain structure, and avoid further hearing loss.

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(Sources of this article: Healthy China, CCTV News, CCTV Life Circle, Beijing Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing Chaoyang Hospital, China Disabled Persons’ Federation, etc.)

Produced by: Science Central Kitchen

Produced by: Beijing Science and Technology News | Beijing Science and Technology Media

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