Association between Anemia and Auditory Threshold Shifts in the US Population: National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Jui-Hu Shih, I-Hsun Li, Ke-Ting Pan, Chih-Hung Wang, Hsin-Chien Chen, Li-Yun Fann, Jen-Ho Tseng and Li-Ting Kao
Additional contact information
Jui-Hu Shih: Department of Pharmacy Practice, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei 11490, Taiwan
I-Hsun Li: Department of Pharmacy Practice, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei 11490, Taiwan
Ke-Ting Pan: Institute of Environmental Design and Engineering, Bartlett School, University College London, London WC1E, UK
Chih-Hung Wang: Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, National Defense Medical Center, Taipei 11490, Taiwan
Hsin-Chien Chen: Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei 11490, Taiwan
Li-Yun Fann: Department of Nursing, Taipei City Hospital, Taipei 106, Taiwan
Jen-Ho Tseng: Department of Neurosurgery, Taipei City Hospital, Taipei 106, Taiwan
Li-Ting Kao: Department of Pharmacy Practice, Tri-Service General Hospital, Taipei 11490, Taiwan

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 11, 1-9

Abstract: Existing evidence indicates that both iron deficiency anemia and sickle cell anemia have been previously associated with hearing loss. However, human data investigating the association between anemia and auditory threshold shifts at different frequencies in the adolescent, adult and elderly population are extremely limited to date. Therefore, this cross-sectional study used the dataset from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2005 to 2012 to explore differences in low- or high-frequency hearing thresholds and hearing loss prevalence between participants with and without anemia. A total of 918 patients with anemia and 8213 without anemia were included. Results indicated that low- and high-frequency pure tone average were significantly higher in patients with anemia than that in those without anemia in the elderly, but not in adult or adolescent population. In addition, the prevalence of low-frequency hearing loss but not high-frequency hearing loss was also higher in patients with anemia than in those without anemia in the elderly population. After adjusting various confounders, multiple regression models still indicated that patients with anemia tended to have larger threshold shift. In conclusion, anemia was associated with auditory threshold shifts in the elderly population, especially those vulnerable to low-frequency hearing loss.

Keywords: anemia; hearing loss; auditory threshold shifts; pure tone average (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/11/3916/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/11/3916/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:11:p:3916-:d:365785

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().