Beyond Hearing Loss: Ageing as a Tinnitus Risk Factor

Background Tinnitus affects 10 to 15 percent of the population, but its underlying causes are not yet fully understood. Hearing loss has been established as the most important risk factor. Ageing is also known to accompany increased prevalence, however, the risk is normally seen as a consequence of (age-related) hearing loss. Whether ageing per se is a risk factor has not yet been established. We specifically focused on the effect of ageing and the relationship between age, hearing loss and tinnitus. Methods We used two samples for our analyses. The first, exploratory analyses, comprised 2249 Austrian individuals. The second included data from 16008 people, drawn from a publicly available dataset (NHANES). We used logistic regressions to investigate the effect of age on tinnitus. Findings In both samples, ageing per se was found to be a significant predictor of tinnitus. In the more decisive NHANES sample, an interaction effect was observed as well. Odds ratio analyses show that per unit increase of hearing loss the odds of reporting tinnitus is higher in older people (1.06 vs 1.03). Interpretation Expanding previous findings of hearing loss as the main risk factor for tinnitus, we established ageing as a risk factor in its own right. Underlying mechanisms remain unclear, and this work calls for urgent research efforts to link biological ageing processes, hearing loss and tinnitus. We therefore suggest a novel working hypothesis that integrates these aspects from an ageing brain viewpoint. Funding Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG; BRIDGE 1 project “SmartCIs,” 871232) and Land Salzburg (“Hidden Hearing Loss”, 20204-WISS/225/288/4-2021).