Almost 620,000 military veterans share a disabling health problem with rockers Eric Clapton, Pete Townsend, Keith Richards, Mick Fleetwood, and others. It’s an occupational hazard.
They’re going deaf, and it’s long been thought there isn’t much we can do about it but fit them with hearing aids. Rock musicians can take preventive measures by turning the music down, if they would.
Men and women in our armed forces – the focus of some promising new research that Henry Ford Hospital is working on with the military – don’t have such an option. When explosives, in particular the improvised explosive devices or IEDs that are so much a part of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, aren’t killing our troops, they’re deafening them.
But we have reason to believe that a special “dietary supplement,” a simple pill, not only could reduce this hearing loss but also prevent it.
If all goes well, the impact on human suffering is obvious. Maybe not so obvious is the potential financial benefit. The U.S. government is now spending about $1 billion a year to treat those who’ve had a significant part of their hearing literally blown away in war.
Fold into this the fact that noise-induced hearing loss can also affect the sufferer’s balance, ability to sleep, to communicate, and even raise the risk of heart disease (because of related rises in blood pressure, blood sugar, and lipids).
Whether it happens to Keith Richards or a soldier in combat, the process is essentially the same. Inside the cochlea, which is a spiral tube in the inner ear where sound is translated into hearing, tiny filaments called hair cells gently wave in fluid much like patches of sea grass sway with the ocean’s ebb and flow. When a blast of sound – literally a “deafening noise” – enters the ear, it flattens or otherwise damages the hair cells, blurring or breaking their signals to the brain.
Red wine may hold a key to treating and even preventing such hearing loss, though not in the way old Keith might prefer.
A substance found in red wine and red grapes called resveratrol is among a group of “nutraceuticals” that we’ve found to hold promise in treating hearing-related problems. Nutraceuticals are foods or substances found in foods that have health or medical benefits.
I’ve done extensive research on using nutraceuticals to treat hearing damage, and have tested a compound – in animal studies – that includes a component based on resveratrol. The results have been promising, and we’ll soon begin testing in humans.
Working with some of my colleagues in the military, we’re developing a simple pill, a sort of dietary supplement, based on this research. The federal government is backing our efforts instead of turning, so to speak, a deaf ear.
– Dr. Michael Seidman, Director Division Otologic/Neurotologic Surgery, Henry Ford Health System
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