Everybody loves the concept of a miracle cure that helps you live longer. As a matter of fact, a quick internet search will probably return thousands of such miracle cures (if not more), each promising to help you live longer if you employ one simple trick. Pretty much all of these alleged cures have no medical foundation and are not supported by the healthcare community.
However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t do anything to positively impact your lifespan. Your expected lifespan can be positively impacted by quitting smoking and eating a healthy diet.
This is also true of managing hearing loss by wearing hearing aids. And a multidisciplinary publication that focuses on healthy aging, called The Lancet Healthy Longevity, has recently released research that underlines this. So, will wearing hearing aids to treat hearing loss help increase longevity? According to this research, it’s a distinct possibility.
Does hearing loss pose a threat to your health?
The connection between your hearing health and your overall wellness isn’t particularly new to researchers. For example, it has been well demonstrated that neglected hearing loss can considerably increase your risk of cognitive decline later in life.
These risks, however, are largely unknown by most individuals. They think that hearing loss will only influence one aspect of their lives and is a mere nuisance. But when left untreated, hearing loss can pose bigger health concerns than a simple inconvenience.
The connection between lifespan and hearing loss
Typically, wearing hearing aids as often as possible will be the main way to manage hearing loss. from this perspective, do hearing aids decrease the risk of early death? There is a definite possibility, according to this latest study, that hearing aids can decrease your risk of early death. There is a 24% reduction in mortality risk for individuals with hearing loss who regularly use hearing aids, as revealed by this study. In other words, the individuals who participated in the study who used hearing aids tended to live longer.
Hearing aid advantages
Though The Lancet Healthy Longevity study strongly indicates a connection between hearing health and lifespan, it doesn’t definitely prove that using hearing aids will help you live longer. However, it’s another piece of information to add onto what we already understand about the advantages of hearing aids.
- It will be easier to function in social situations. This can limit the degree of social separation you feel, improving your overall mental health.
- Hearing aids can help you enjoy day-to-day moments with friends and family, from going out to lunch with colleagues to asking your grandkids about their school day.
- Cognition can be enhanced by wearing hearing aids. This means that you (and your brain) will probably be less exhausted and healthier over time.
- You can prevent accidents and injuries by being more aware of your surroundings.
These are improvements to your quality of life that you’ll experience each time you wear your hearing aids. These are all practical reasons to use hearing aids to treat your hearing loss.
Your total health and well-being depend heavily on healthy hearing
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 important part of your total health and wellness. If you have hearing loss, getting diagnosed and wearing hearing aids can substantially diminish your early mortality risks.
Seeing a hearing specialist can help you identify whether you have hearing loss and the best way to treat it.