Chronic Tinnitus is Associated with Aging but not Dementia

Background

Aging is related to deterioration of bodily and neural functions, leading to various disorders and symptoms, including the development of dementia, hearing loss, or tinnitus. Understanding how these phenomena are intertwined and how aging affects those is crucial for prevention and the future development of interventions.

Methods

We utilized the UK Biobank which includes a total of 502,382 participants between 40 and 70 years old. We used logistic regression models and cox proportional hazard models and compared hazard ratios.

Results

The odds of reporting tinnitus in the older age group (i.e., older than 58 years) were increased by 43.3% and a one decibel increase in the SRT enhanced the odds for tinnitus by 13.5%. For our second analysis regarding hearing loss, the risk of dementia increased by 9.2% with an increase by one decibel in the SRT score. In terms of aging, each additional year increased the risk by 19.2%. Tinnitus alone showed a significant influence with a hazard ratio of 52.1%, however, when adding hearing loss, age and various covariates, the effect vanished.

Conclusion

Findings confirm that tinnitus is indeed related to aging, but presumably independent of the aging processes accompanying the development of dementia. This highlights the urge to further investigate the impact of aging on neural processes that are relevant for alterations in the auditory systems (e.g., leading to the development of tinnitus or hearing loss) as well as for increased vulnerability in terms of neurodegenerative diseases.

Key Points

Question

Aging and hearing loss have been linked to dementia and tinnitus respectively. But is there a direct influence of tinnitus on dementia risk?

Findings

In this case-control study, data derived from the UK Biobank was used to first replicate previous findings establishing aging as a risk factor for tinnitus and hearing loss as a risk factor for dementia. Tinnitus was not found to increase the risk of dementia.

Meaning

Aging is related to tinnitus, however, since tinnitus does not influence the risk of dementia, we conclude that the aging processes that determine tinnitus are independent of neural processes facilitating the development of dementia.