Every 10 dB increase in speech-in-noise hearing impairment was associated with a 57% higher risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, according to recent study results.
"The congruence of the findings obtained here with prior evidence further supports the assumption that hearing impairment and Parkinson's are related through a common neurological cause. These findings have significant implications for clinical practice," noted the researchers.
They analyzed data from the U.K. Biobank to evaluate the association between speech-in-noise hearing impairment and the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease. The researchers used the Digit Triplet Test to measure speech-reception thresholds (SRTs) in a cohort of 159,395 participants aged 40 to 69 who were free of Parkinson’s at baseline. This pre-registered prospective cohort study, published in Parkinsonism & Related Disorders, followed participants for a median of 14.24 years to assess incident Parkinson’s diagnoses.
The primary analysis employed a Cox proportional hazards model to evaluate the relationship between hearing impairment and Parkinson’s risk, adjusting for age, sex, and educational attainment. Over the follow-up period, 810 participants developed Parkinson’s, noted Megan Rose Readman of the Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK, and her colleagues.
Exploratory analyses using categorical SRT norms from the U.K. Biobank found no significant risk increase for participants classified as having ‘insufficient’ (P = .163) or ‘poor’ hearing (P = .074) compared to those with ‘normal’ hearing, although the trends suggested a positive association.
Participants with incident Parkinson’s were older (mean age: 63.01 vs. 56.58 years, P < .001), predominantly male (65.56% vs. 45.37%, P < .001), and had higher SRTs (mean: -5.75 dB vs. -6.17 dB, P < .001) than controls. Sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of the primary findings, with similar HRs observed when models were stratified by age or included additional covariates.
The researchers noted that the findings align with the "common cause hypothesis," suggesting shared pathophysiological mechanisms such as mitochondrial dysfunction, α-synuclein aggregation, and neurovascular decoupling may link hearing impairment and Parkinson’s. Speech-in-noise tests, which assess both peripheral and central auditory function, could be an important tool for early risk stratification.
Further studies are needed to confirm the findings in diverse populations and evaluate whether managing hearing impairment could influence Parkinson’s progression, noted researchers.
Full disclosures can be found in the published study.
