# here's a new one--being fat may result in more hearing loss ?!?



## Tad (Jun 10, 2008)

Here is the link to an article on the CBC site. The author's of the study admit that the findings are puzzling.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2008/06/10/smoking-hearing.html


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## irish_redhead (Jun 11, 2008)

> Your hearing might be negatively affected by smoking and a high body mass index, a new study suggests, though drinking alcohol may stave off hearing loss.



Great. 

If I lose my hearing, it's likely going to be because of rock concerts, and the fact that my headphones are constantly blaring into my head. Smoking and BMI are the least of my problems. 

It's nice to know I can improve my odds by drinking at said concerts.


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## moore2me (Jun 11, 2008)

Here are some confounding factors that I see in this study:
1.	Having a high BMI, and
2.	Having poor cardiovascular health

are both two factors that tend to make one sick. Especially people in the age group of this study participants 53-67. Often when people get sick, they are given drugs, and often the drugs are antibiotics. Antibiotics (and other drugs) are well known to cause hearing loss. (My mother is profoundly deaf strictly due to antibiotics given to her when she had blood circulation problems.)

Next confounder  smoking & noisy work.

Also, they found that the more years someone smoked, the more severe the hearing loss was. It is also well known that excessive noise is the main cause of hearing loss. In my personal experience, I have visited many workplaces, I estimate about 500. It is my theory that people working in noisy environments (blue collar workers) are more likely to be smokers (and have more years smoking) than say hospital workers or the average shoppers at the mall. Again, the age group tested was 53-67, so the smokers would most likely be long term users.

These confounders would have to be filtered out before I would get too excited about the results of this study.


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## butch (Jun 11, 2008)

There's also a study from some years back that claims that lesbians suffer more hearing loss than heterosexual women. 

Maybe hearing loss, like a lot of the other health issues that are linked to fat people AND other marginalized communities (people of color, the poor, etc) are in reality related to the stress of living with overt discrimination?


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## AnnMarie (Jun 11, 2008)

This seems like science catching up with perception. The way people talk about us, they already assume this is true.


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## Dr. Feelgood (Jun 11, 2008)

Actually, it's the other way around: hearing loss causes smoking and a high BMI, because you can't hear people nagging you about it.


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## moore2me (Jun 11, 2008)

Dr. Feelgood said:


> Actually, it's the other way around: hearing loss causes smoking and a high BMI, because you can't hear people nagging you about it.



Dr. Feelgood, I know you are making the joke here. It would be funny, except the fact that most girls & boys start smoking at an early age (in the teens). Unfortunately, the hearing loss from listening to loud music will not show up until later in the person's life. Then it's too late, their hearing has already been irreparably damaged. (Sorry, just couldn't help climbing up on my little soapbox.)


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## TallFatSue (Jun 12, 2008)

> Your hearing might be negatively affected by smoking and a high body mass index, a new study suggests, though drinking alcohol may stave off hearing loss.


Hmm, the whole premise looks pretty flimsy, and not a word about whether chocolate might stave off hearing loss, so I'll just turn a deaf ear to this study.


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## bexy (Jun 12, 2008)

AnnMarie said:


> This seems like science catching up with perception. The way people talk about us, they already assume this is true.



lol. quoted for truth. how often i get people shout or mouth words emphatically at me, as if the fat blocks my ears or muffles the sounds i hear somehow.

:happy:


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## Tooz (Jun 12, 2008)

What? Seeing a bat may somersault bleary gloss?!


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## Zandoz (Jun 12, 2008)

Everybody knows that fat causes EVERYTHING...including solar flairs, engine knock, hard drive failure, drought, and the common cold.

Daughter went to the after hours clinic yesterday for an infection in a recent piercing ...came home with a prescription for Metformin based on a single finger stick less than an hour after she'd eaten. According to the doctor, she HAD to be diabetic...she's fat.


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## cute_obese_girl (Jun 13, 2008)

Zandoz said:


> Everybody knows that fat causes EVERYTHING...including solar flairs, engine knock, hard drive failure, drought, and the common cold.
> 
> Daughter went to the after hours clinic yesterday for an infection in a recent piercing ...came home with a prescription for Metformin based on a single finger stick less than an hour after she'd eaten. According to the doctor, she HAD to be diabetic...she's fat.



Fantastic  Because that's not something that should require a regular treating physician...that would make way too much sense. What kind of after hours clinic writes scrips for anything other than antibiotics and pain meds anyway?


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## butch (Jun 13, 2008)

cute_obese_girl said:


> Fantastic  Because that's not something that should require a regular treating physician...that would make way too much sense. What kind of after hours clinic writes scrips for anything other than antibiotics and pain meds anyway?



To be fair, as someone who has no health insurance, any health care I get at all comes from these types of places, and I bet that is true for a lot of uninsured people. I agree with the critique about the diabetes and the after hours clinic, don't get me wrong, but I had a similar experience with HBP and one of these places, and luckily for me they did urge me to see a GP to have it checked out after they wrote me a script for the HBP drug.


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## Tad (Jun 13, 2008)

Zandoz said:


> Everybody knows that fat causes EVERYTHING...including solar flairs, engine knock, hard drive failure, drought, and the common cold.
> 
> Daughter went to the after hours clinic yesterday for an infection in a recent piercing ...came home with a prescription for Metformin based on a single finger stick less than an hour after she'd eaten. According to the doctor, she HAD to be diabetic...she's fat.



:doh::doh:

I hope your daughter has a strong sense of self, enough to give that opinion the respect that it deserves.


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## Zandoz (Jun 13, 2008)

cute_obese_girl said:


> Fantastic  Because that's not something that should require a regular treating physician...that would make way too much sense. What kind of after hours clinic writes scrips for anything other than antibiotics and pain meds anyway?



Around here, the urget/after-hours clinics are the only option outside of the emergency room if care is needed in under a several week wait to be seen. Basically they operate as regular doctors offices, but you are seen on a first come first serve basis, and they take no appointments.


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## Zandoz (Jun 13, 2008)

edx said:


> :doh::doh:
> 
> I hope your daughter has a strong sense of self, enough to give that opinion the respect that it deserves.




Yeah...she's a nurse...LOL. To say she was PO'd at the situation would be a mild understatement.


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## PamelaLois (Jun 13, 2008)

Oh, this just MUST be true based on my past experience. I went to the local doc-in-the-box because I had swimmer's ear, an outer ear infection. Now I get this all the freakin time because I SWIM! I knew what it was, knew what I needed and yet the moron doctor told me that if I would lose 50 lbs, things like this wouldn't happen to me! After he handed me the scrip for antibiotics, I told him that I would be sending my check for payment when I read his paper in the JAMA proving that thin people don't get swimmer's ear.

Still haven't ever paid the ass


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## butch (Jun 13, 2008)

PamelaLois said:


> Oh, this just MUST be true based on my past experience. I went to the local doc-in-the-box because I had swimmer's ear, an outer ear infection. Now I get this all the freakin time because I SWIM! I knew what it was, knew what I needed and yet the moron doctor told me that if I would lose 50 lbs, things like this wouldn't happen to me! After he handed me the scrip for antibiotics, I told him that I would be sending my check for payment when I read his paper in the JAMA proving that thin people don't get swimmer's ear.
> 
> Still haven't ever paid the ass



Awesome-I love it!


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