Vitamins May Mitigate Hearing Loss

[Guest guest]

Mitigate Hearing Loss

Multivitamin " cocktail " shows promise in animal trials

By Mark Huffman

ConsumerAffairs.com

November 12, 2008

A growing number of Americans--from troops returning from war to students

with music blasting through headphones--are suffering from impairing

noise-induced hearing loss. Add in aging baby boomers who attended too many rock

concerts

in their youth and about 10 million people in the U.S. have some hearing

impairment.

The rising trend is something that researchers and physicians at the

University of Michigan Kresge Hearing Research Institute are hoping to reverse,

with a

cocktail of vitamins and the mineral magnesium that has shown promise as a

possible way to prevent hearing loss caused by loud noises. The nutrients were

successful in laboratory tests, and now researchers are testing whether humans

will benefit as well.

" The prevention of noise induced hearing loss is key, " says Glenn E. Green,

M.D., assistant professor of otolaryngology at the U-M Health System and

director of the U-M Children's Hearing Laboratory. " When we can't prevent

noise-induced hearing loss through screening programs and use of hearing

protection,

then we really need to come up with some way of protecting people who are still

going to have noise exposure. My hope is that this medication will give people

a richer, fuller life. "

The combination of vitamins A, C and E, plus magnesium, is given in pill form

to patients who are participating in the research. Developed at the U-M

Kresge Hearing Research Institute, the medication, called AuraQuell, is designed

to

be taken before a person is exposed to loud noises. In earlier testing at U-M

on guinea pigs, the combination of the four micronutrients blocked about 80

percent of the noise-induced hearing impairment.

Now, AuraQuell is being tested in a set of fourmultinational human clinical

trials: military trials in Sweden and Spain, an industrial trial in Spain, and

a trial involving students at the University of Florida who listen to music at

high volumes on their iPods and other PDAs, funded by the National Institutes

of Health (NIH). This is the first NIH-funded clinical trial involving the

prevention of noise-induced hearing loss.

" If we can even see 50 percent of the effectiveness in humans that we saw in

our animal trials, we will have an effective treatment that will very

significantly reduce noise-induced hearing impairment in humans. That would be a

remarkable dream, " said co-lead researcher f M. , Ph.D., the Lynn and

Ruth Townsend Professor of Communication Disorders and director of the Center

for

Hearing Disorders at the U-M Department of Otolaryngology's Kresge Hearing

Research Institute.

is leading the research along with colleagues at Karolinska Institute,

where also has an appointment; the University of Florida; and the

University Castille de La Mancha.

Until a decade ago, it was thought that noise damaged hearing by intense

mechanical vibrations that destroyed the delicate structures of the inner ear.

There was no intervention to protect the inner ear other than reducing then

intensity of sound reaching it, such as ear plugs, which are not always

effective.

It was then discovered that noise caused intense metabolic activity in the

inner ear and the production of molecules that damage the inner ear cells; and

that allowed the discovery of an intervention to prevent these effects.

The laboratory research that led to a new understanding of the mechanisms

underlying noise induce hearing loss was funded by the NIH; the preclinical

translational research that led to the formulation of AuraQuell as an effective

preventative was funded by General Motors and the United Auto Workers.

notes that the military tests in the new study could be of particular

importance because of the high number of soldiers who develop hearing loss in

the line of duty, due to improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and other noises.

Last year, he says, the Department of Defense spent approximately $1.5

billion in compensation for hearing impairment, and Veterans Affairs hospitals

spent

close to $1 billion for clinical care and treatment of hearing impairment.

The most recent figures in a report by the Institute of Medicine indicated that

one-third of returning soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be

redeployed specifically because of hearing impairment.

" Not only is it an enormous factor in quality of life for the individual

affected, in cost to society for health care and compensation, " said,

" but

it fundamentally compromises the effectiveness of our military at this time. "

has launched a U-M startup company called OtoMedicine, which holds the

license to develop the vitamin-and-magnesium pill for human application.

Hearing loss commonly occurs, Green says, when loud noises trigger the

formation of molecules inside the ear and these molecules cause damage to the

hair

cells of the inner ear. The cells then shut down and scar, and they cannot grow

back.

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