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Epidemiology and Population Health

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

International Journal of Obesity volume 46, pages 1825–1832 (2022)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

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.

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Fig. 1: Cumulative incidence curve of total hearing loss for weight change patterns.
Fig. 2
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Data availability

Data are available at https://wwwn.cdc.gov/nchs/nhanes.

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Funding

The study was supported by the Hubei Province Key Laboratory of Occupational Hazard Identification and Control, Wuhan University of Science and Technology (OHIC2021Y03) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2019kfyXJJS032). The funder did not play any role in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; nor in the preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Social Medicine and Health Management, School of Public Health, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei, 430030, PR China

    Wenzhen Li, Dajie Chen, Zuxun Lu & Yueqing Tao

  2. Wuhan Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wuhan, Hubei, 430000, PR China

    Ying Peng

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  1. Wenzhen Li
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Contributions

WZL wrote the manuscript and performed statistical analysis. WZL conceived and designed the study, and interpreted data. DJC, YP, ZXL and YQT critically revised the manuscript and approved the final version. WZL is the guarantors of this work and, as such, had full access to all the data in the study and take responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis.

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Correspondence to Wenzhen Li.

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Li, W., Peng, Y., Chen, D. et al. Association of weight change across adulthood with hearing loss: A retrospective cohort study. Int J Obes 46, 1825–1832 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41366-022-01197-x

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