Tinnitus Less Common in Female Caffeine Drinkers
Women who consume more caffeine are less likely to experience tinnitus, according to a new study.
A team led by researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital analyzed data on more than 65,000 women from the Nurses’ Health Study II. Participants included those with and without tinnitus, a condition in which an individual perceives noise in 1 or both ears, or in the head, despite there being no external sound.
Women involved in the study were between the ages of 30 and 44 at its start in 1991, when the authors collected information on participants’ medical history, lifestyle, and diet. At the beginning of the study, the average participant’s caffeine intake was 242.3 mg per day, or nearly 2.5 8-ounce cups of coffee.
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In 2009, the women were asked questions about tinnitus, including the date of onset, where applicable. When a woman reported symptoms on either a daily basis or a few times a week, researchers counted this occurrence as a case, identifying a total of 5,289 cases of reported incident tinnitus.
In analyzing the results, the authors found the more caffeine women consumed, the less likely they were to have experienced tinnitus, observing a “significant inverse association between caffeine intake and the incidence of tinnitus among these women,” the researchers noted. The investigators found that rates of tinnitus were 15 percent lower among women who consumed 450 mg to 599 mg of caffeine daily—regardless of age—in comparison to those who drank less than 150 mg, or about 1.5 8-ounce cups of coffee, a day.
Based on the existing literature, “it is likely the most common exposure leading to tinnitus is excessive loud noise exposure, therefore counseling the use of ear protection when exposed to loud noise would likely be helpful,” says Sharon G. Curhan, MD, ScM, a physician in the Channing Division of Network Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and co-author of the study.
The study findings suggest “that avoiding caffeine would not reduce the risk of tinnitus. For primary care practitioners, this suggests that the evidence does not support the recommendation to avoid caffeine in order to reduce the risk of tinnitus.”
However, “there is not yet enough evidence to recommend making a change in existing caffeine intake habits,” says Curhan, adding that “there are likely many other environmental exposures, and we are beginning to study these other factors.”
—Mark McGraw
Reference
Glicksman J, Curhan S, et al. A Prospective Study of Caffeine Intake and Risk of Incident Tinnitus. AJM. 2014.