Aspirin, red wine and green vegetables, already famous for helping the heart, may also delay the onset of age-related deafness and reduce hearing loss caused by powerful antibiotics and loud noise, suggests the New Scientist.
Indirect evidence for this comes from research into the effect of antioxidants on hair cells, the delicate hairs of the inner ear that are essential for hearing.
Jochen Schacht of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor and colleagues found that salicylate — the key antioxidant in aspirin — protected hair cells among patients who were given the antibiotic gentamicin.
Hearing loss affected only three percent of patients who were given gentamicin and a dose of aspirin.
Among those who took gentamicin and a placebo, 13% had hearing loss.
Antioxidants are compounds that protect against DNA-damaging molecules called free radicals. Antioxidants are also found in red wine, green vegetables, apples, green tea and certain other foods and beverages.
There is no direct evidence that dietary intake of antioxidants, such as drinking moderate amounts of red wine, can prevent hearing loss among humans, although studies in which rats were kept on restricted diets suggest indirectly this could be the case, New Scientist says.
”The jury’s still out on that, but it certainly can’t hurt to increase the amount of green vegetables, red wine or green tea that you consume,” it quotes Schacht as saying.
The report is carried in next Saturday’s issue of the British science weekly. – Sapa-AFP