Effect of Diabetes Mellitus on Hearing

Abstract

Jordao (1857) was the first to report sensorineural hearing loss in patients with diabetes mellitus. Jannulis and Delijan [1] were the first otologists who carried out hearing tests in diabetics and concluded that these patients suffered from progressive bilateral sensorineural deafness of gradual onset which predominantly affects higher frequencies in elderly subjects. The objective was to identify type of hearing loss, comparison of duration of diabetes and relation of HbA1c levels with it, to identify whether diabetics mellitus have a higher incidence of sensorineural hearing loss as compared to general population, to check the relationship of age, sex and prevalence of deafness in diabetes mellitus. Sensorineural hearing loss was found to be more common in the diabetic patients than in nondiabetic patients from the same institution. Poor control of diabetes, as measured by HbA1c laboratory data, correlated with worsening hearing in patients with diabetes who had sensorineural hearing loss. Sensorineural hearing loss was more common in patients with diabetes than in the control nondiabetic patients, and severity of hearing loss seemed to correlate with duration of the disease. This may have been due to microangiopathic disease in the inner ear.

Keywords: Diabetes mellitus, SNHL