Diabetes Link to Inner Ear Problems

by E-women.com
10 August 2005
Type 1 diabetes can lead to inner ear problems, says a new report.
Prior to this research suggested that diabetes can lead to hearing loss. However, the authors explain in the journal Otolaryngology: Head and Neck Surgery that no previous study has measured and documented changes in the anatomy of the cochlea the deep-seated spiral structure where sound is turned into nerve impulses in patients with type 1 diabetes.
Dr. Hisaki Fukushima from the International Hearing Foundation in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and colleagues examined skull bones obtained at autopsy from patients with juvenile diabetes and compared them with similar bones obtained from normal “controls.”
Type 1 diabetes “results in changes of the cochlea .. that are likely to result in hearing loss,” they conclude.
SOURCE: Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, July 2005.