Old age hearing loss may begin when we're children

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2023-01-27 03:00

Australia; New Zealand; VIC

Photo by Vitolda Klein on Unsplash

Old age hearing loss may begin as early as mid-childhood, according to Australian researchers who looked at the influence of genes on hearing loss risk. The team recruited about 1,600 children and 1,600 adults, tested their hearing, and analysed their DNA to see how many genes previously linked to hearing loss they carried. After assigning a level of hearing loss risk to participants based on these genes, the researchers say that while the link between a higher genetic risk score and poorer hearing was stronger in the adults, it was also present in the children. The researchers say this adds to existing evidence that age-related hearing loss can begin as early as the first decade of life, and is influenced by our genes as well as our environment.

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Journal/
conference: JAMA Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI), The University of Melbourne, University of Auckland

Funder: This work was supported by grants from the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (Nos. 1041352, 1109355); The Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation (No. 2014-241); the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; The University of Melbourne; the National Heart Foundation of Australia (No. 100660); Financial Markets Foundation for Children (No. 2014-055, 2016-310); and the Victorian Deaf Education Institute. Research at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute is supported by the Victorian Government’s Operational Infrastructure Support Program. DrsWang and Lange were supported by a Melbourne Children’s LifeCourse postdoctoral fellowship, funded by Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation grant (No. 2018-984). The Australian National Health and Medical Research Council supported Dr Sung (Early Career Fellowship, No. 1125687), DrWake (Principal Research Fellowship, No. 1160906), and Dr Morgan (Investigator grant No. 1195955) in this work. Also, DrWang was supported by the Jack Brockhoff Foundation Early Career Medical Research grant and Dr Sung was supported by a Melbourne Children’s Clinician Scientist Fellowship, 2021.

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