Association of weight change across adulthood with hearing loss: A retrospective cohort study

Objectives We aimed to investigate the relationship of weight change across adulthood with the risk of hearing loss. Methods The data from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys. Cox proportional hazards models were applied to explore the association between weight change and risk of hearing loss. Kaplan-Meier method was used to plot the survival curves associated with weight change patterns. Results Compared with participants who remained at normal weight, those with stable obese participants had increased risks of total hearing loss across adulthood, with hazard ratios of 1.24 (95% confidence intervals 1.11–1.38) from age 25 years to baseline, 1.09 (1.001–1.18) from 10 years before baseline to baseline, and 1.23 (1.10–1.37) from age 25 years to 10 years before baseline. Moving the obese to non-obese weight change pattern from middle to late adulthood was not significantly associated with an increased risk of total hearing loss (1.04, 0.91–1.19) and high-frequency hearing loss (1.02, 0.90–1.17), whereas changing from non-obese to obese body mass index over this period was associated with total hearing loss risk (1.20, 1.11–1.29), and speech- and high-frequency hearing loss (1.21, 1.07–1.36; 1.18, 1.09–1.28). Those moving from the non-obese to obese category between young and middle adulthood had a 16% (1.16, 1.02–1.33) higher risk of speech-frequency hearing loss. Conclusions Stable obesity and weight gain across adulthood are both associated with increased risks of hearing loss. Our findings imply that maintaining normal weight across adulthood is of great importance for preventing hearing loss in later life.