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Dementia

Midlife hearing loss and dementia risk

Hearing loss is common among older adults and has reported associations with a higher risk of dementia. Machado-Fragua et al. offer evidence that shows midlife hearing loss is modestly associated with a higher incidence of late-life dementia, and highlight considerations of duration of exposure, measurement, intervention timing and public health awareness for dementia risk reduction.

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Fig. 1: Hearing loss associations and strategies.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank K. Da Silva for their assistance and review.

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Correspondence to Josef Coresh.

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Competing interests

N.S.R. reports grants from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) while writing the article as well as service on the Neosensory scientific advisory board from 2021 to 2023. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Reed, N.S., Huang, A.R. & Coresh, J. Midlife hearing loss and dementia risk. Nat Aging 5, 1654–1656 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43587-025-00955-6

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