Take control of your hearing loss before it's too late

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients, Jan, 2007 by Jonathan V. Wright

Tom came to me wanting to hear an answer. Literally. About a year earlier, he had suddenly lost nearly all the hearing in his right ear in only three weeks. One specialist told him it was probably a neurosensory problem. Another thought it might be autoimmune-related. Neither one did anything for him. There was nothing to do but wait, they said. But Tom refused to accept this verdict. He'd heard that I often have another point of view, so he consulted with me.

It seemed logical to me that Tom's hearing loss could be due to an autoimmune problem. Sudden hearing loss has been diagnosed as autoimmune for years. But over the next year and a half as I worked with Tom, it became clear to me that autoimmune hearing loss might not be autoimmune-related after all. And the key to correcting this problem might just be the same key to unlocking the mystery of a problem that's much more common, not to mention more difficult to solve: age-related hearing loss.

Until now, age-related hearing loss has been a problem with very little hope of solution. There's been little to do except wait for the hearing to diminish and then get a hearing aid. This solution doesn't actually fix the problem, but, like using a crutch, it helps you get by. Years ago, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published a brief article reporting that vitamin D supplementation slowed hearing loss. Since then, research findings have been conflicting, some reporting significant vitamin D deficiency, (1-2) and others not. (3) I've advised individuals with age-related hearing loss to use at least 3,000 to 4,000 IU daily, but the results have been mixed. (See the November 2003 issue of Nutrition & Healing for a more complete discussion of vitamin D supplementation and health.) Very recently, however, there's been what appears to be a research breakthrough that may lead to a safe, natural treatment capable of stopping or even partially reversing age-related hearing loss.

Following The Rabbit Trail

Before we get to this new breakthrough, though, let's go over the other steps Tom took in his attempt to alleviate the hearing problem and to improve his health in general. Since Tom's hearing loss had been diagnosed as autoimmune, I recommended a blood test for anti-gliadin antibodies to see if he was sensitive to the proteins found in all grains except corn and rice. I recommended a complete set of other food allergy tests, too, because autoimmune diseases are always lessened (although not cured) by eliminating these foods from your diet. His anti-gliadin test was positive, as were many of the other food allergy tests, so I pointed him to the clinic nutritionist and told him to go onto a gluten/gliadin-free diet and to control the intake of his other food allergens. I told him that if his hearing loss was truly autoimmune, there was at least a small chance that taking the pressure of this immune system in this way might reduce the supposed "autoimmune" attack on his hearing.

In addition to hearing loss, Tom reported vertigo (dizziness), postural hypotension (dizziness and wooziness on standing up quickly), and exercise intolerance (unusual fatigue for a longer period of time than usual following active exercise). For these reasons, I recommended an adrenal stress test to see if his adrenal glands were functioning properly. I was surprised to find that Tom's cortisol and cortisone response was completely normal. The test did reveal, however, that his testosterone was at the very low end of the normal range and that his testosterone/estrogen ratio was also low. As a first step, I recommended botanicals and nutrients that frequently raise testosterone levels.

Over the next year, Tom experienced improvements in his overall health. Unfortunately, he didn't regain any hearing in his right ear, and he was having more episodes of vertigo than before. Then, six months later, Tom had a setback: his low-frequency hearing suddenly disappeared in his left ear--the "good" one. Since it was still suspected that Tom's hearing loss problem was autoimmune, one of his doctors immediately put him on high-dose Prednisone (80 milligrams daily), the most widely prescribed patent medication for the suppression of the immune system. But Prednisone is a "space alien" version of cortisol, and even at doses lower than Tom's, it has a laundry list of side effects, including hypertension, ulcers, diabetes, cataracts, substantial weight gain, interference with healing, and many others. I advised Tom to take extra vitamin A, zinc, calcium, and magnesium to offset some of the adverse effects of the Prednisone.

A month later, Tom sent me an e-mail saying that the Prednisone had worked and that the hearing in his left ear had returned to prior levels. He had even been able to taper considerably his use of Prednisone. Within two months, Tom had decreased his use of Prednisone down to ten milligrams daily. But because of Prednisone's well-known side effects, especially with repeated or long-term use, Tom was still looking for alternatives. His search turned up three research papers that have completely changed the way I view hearing loss. Two involved the natural hormone aldosterone, and the third described treatment of Candida, the common fungal pathogen in people with "autoimmune" hearing loss.