Supplements To Hear Better?
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Article written by:
Dr. Francisco Arroyo
Medical Director of SportsMed
Sports Medicine & Stem Cell Specialist
Medical | Regenerative Medicine
… Opens a door to improve hearing without supplements or medications
This article caught my attention because although it is not done with human patients but rather with rodents — although that is how many experiments begin, conducting them with laboratory animals and then gradually escalating them (if the results are as hoped for), until reaching human beings.
The subject is even strange for me because I had never seen supplements directed towards ears, and this one turns out to be one aimed at improving our hearing, so I think that in my group of friends I will have more than one who may be interested, since as a friend says when he fights with his wife: There is sound but no image! And with some of my friends even if we are not fighting they do not hear anything.
The experiment was done with phytosterols. “Phytosterols are dietary factors that reduce the absorption of cholesterol in the intestine by competition, since they have a chemical structure similar to cholesterol. A diet rich in phytosterols (whole wheat bread, beans, rye and lentils) can reduce total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol (harmful to health).” Now these supplements were applied to mice to improve the sensory function of the ear and combat hearing loss in them. The research was done in Argentina and perhaps with it a possible relationship has been discovered with hearing in older adults since, in theory, they reduce the deposit of cholesterol in the inner ear, let’s see.
We know that as we age we lose hearing due to the degradation of the cells of the inner ear, which are the ones that transmit vibrations and change them to electrical signals and sensitivity to high tones is lost and in general the tones are lost and we become half deaf.
Now a group of researchers led by Dr. Maria Eugenia Gomez-Casat of CONICET from the University of Buenos Aires-CONICET found a relationship between low cholesterol levels in the inner ear and age-related hearing loss and all this is because as we age these cells lose their elasticity. In the study, the mice were induced to lose hearing by means of an enzyme and then they were given a diet rich in phytosterols, in addition to another enzyme that activated the treatment with which the mice significantly improved the cells of the inner ear.
The above may not be very significant for some but it really opens a door to improve hearing without supplements or medications and that means a lot to many people.
Article written by:
Dr. Francisco Arroyo – Medical Director of SportMed