Everyone loves the concept of a miracle cure that helps increase your lifespan. In fact, a quick internet search will probably return thousands of such miracle cures (if not more), each promising to help you have a longer life if you employ one simple trick. The healthcare community doesn’t endorse most of these supposed cures as they have no real medical basis.
However, that doesn’t mean that nothing you do can positively impact your longevity. Your expected lifespan can be positively affected by quitting smoking and eating a healthy diet.
This is also true of treating hearing loss by using hearing aids. And a multidisciplinary journal that focuses on healthy aging, called The Lancet Healthy Longevity, has recently released research that reinforces this. So, will wearing hearing aids to treat hearing loss help increase longevity? There’s a strong possibility that it will according to this research.
Does hearing loss pose a threat to your health?
The connection between your hearing health and your overall wellness is not necessarily new to researchers. For example, it has been well established that neglected hearing loss can considerably raise your risk of cognitive decline later in life.
Many individuals, however, are unaware of these risks. They think about hearing loss as an isolated inconvenience, something that only influences one very specific aspect of their life. But when left untreated, hearing loss can pose greater health concerns than a simple inconvenience.
The connection between longevity and hearing loss
In most cases, treatment for hearing loss means wearing hearing aids as much as possible. So does this mean that you can reduce your risk of early death by using hearing aids? According to this most recent study, quite possibly. The study revealed that day-to-day hearing aid use was linked to a 24% reduction in mortality risk. The participants in this study, in other words, who wore their hearing aids, tended to live longer.
The advantages of hearing aids
The study published in The Lancet Healthy Longevity is not necessarily definitive proof that hearing aids will help you have a longer life (although the study does strongly suggest a relationship). However, it’s another piece of information to add onto what we already understand about the advantages of hearing aids.
- You can prevent accidents and injuries by being more conscious of your environment.
- From enjoying tender moments with your grandkids to participating in a business dinner, daily situations with friends, family, and colleagues will be easier.
- Social engagements can become considerably easier. This can reduce the amount of social isolation you feel, improving your overall mental health.
- Cognition can be improved by wearing hearing aids. Over time, your brain will be healthier and less tired from struggling to hear.
Whenever you use your hearing aids, you will experience these improvements to your life. For these reasons alone, hearing aids are an important part of managing your hearing loss.
Hearing is an essential part of your health and wellness
The more we learn about the connections between hearing loss and the rest of your body, the more scientists have come to recognize that your hearing is an exceedingly significant part of your general health and wellness. Your risk of early mortality can be reduced by treating any hearing loss you may have with hearing aids.
Seeing a hearing specialist can help you identify whether you have hearing loss and the best way to manage it.
