Hearing Loss in Teens Linked to Secondhand Smoke

Smoke gets in your ears -- if you're a teen exposed to secondhand smoke -- and is associated with hearing loss, a large study suggested.Exposed adolescents were 1.83 times more likely to experience low-frequency hearing loss than those who had no exposure, according to Dr. Anil K. Lalwani and colleagues from New York University in New York City.And the greatest risk for hearing loss -- a 2.72-fold increase -- was in those with the highest levels of exposure as determined by serum cotinine levels, Lalwani's group reported in the July Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.Read this story on www.medpagetoday.com. The list of potentially harmful outcomes associated with exposure to secondhand smoke continues to grow, from low birth weight to behavioral and cognitive problems and respiratory tract infections -- and more than half of U.S. children are exposed.In the first study to examine secondhand smoke exposure and sensorineural hearing loss in young people, the investigators analyzed cross-sectional data from the 2005-2006 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).They identified 1,533 nonsmokers ages 12 to 19 who had undergone audiometric testing and whose serum cotinine levels had been measured.Low-frequency sensorineural hearing loss was defined as a pure-tone level above 15 dB for 0.5, 1, and 2 kHz, while high-frequency loss was a level above 15 dB for 3, 4, 6, and 8 kHz.