People say that listening to music through headphones is bad for your hearing. How bad, though? A little bit bad or very bad? And are earbuds safer for your ears than regular headphones? -RG
Several studies in big journals over the past decade have found increasing rates of hearing lossamong teens and young adults, even as rates of severe ear infections and other ear problems have dropped. Researchers concluded that noise exposure was the likely cause. Critics of these studies say the tests used were overly sensitive, and that the hearing losses were insignificantly minor.
We may not have a definite answer for years. Perhaps by then, Apple will have its own brand of hearing aids, and hearing loss will be cool.
In the meantime, we definitely know that very loud music for a short time, or moderately loud music for a long time, exhausts and eventually kills the irreplaceable hair cells in our inner ears. The first sign is usually trouble understanding conversation in the presence of background noise.
We also know that some people's ears are very sensitive to damage, while other's are extremely resilient. The problem is we can tell which person has sensitive ears only after they lose some of their hearing.
As for in-the-ear-canal earbuds, they passively block out background noise, which is great because that lets you lower the volume levels way down. Which is, hopefully, what we're all doing, right?
One of the worst things we can do is use over-the-ear headphones (or any earbuds that don't form an airtight seal - like the ones that come with most MP3 players) and crank up the volume to drown out background noise.
So at this point it appears the wisest course of action is to use in-ear or noise-cancelling headphones, at lower volumes, for shorter periods of time. Happy listening.
Gary Payinda MD is an emergency medicine consultant in Whangarei.
If you have a science, health topic or question you'd like addressed, email: drpayinda@gmail.com
(This column provides general information and is not a substitute for the medical advice of your personal doctor.)
