Brett Bellmore
Member
Think I'm going to have to pick up a bottle of these.
Pop a Pill, Save Your Hearing?
"People who've had their ears damaged by gunfire, jackhammers or punk rock have traditionally had two choices: get hearing aids, or suffer in silence.
But a new set of drugs, about to be tested on Marine recruits, is showing promise as a way to protect ears against the din.
"The conventional wisdom has been that there's no medical or surgical treatment for noise-induced hearing loss," said Richard Danielson, a professor of audiology at Baylor College of Medicine. "Only recently has there been the potential for chemical protection, maybe even recovery."
Noise causes harm either by tearing sections of the inner ear -- so-called "mechanical" damage -- or by overstressing some of the cells there. This "metabolic exhaustion" starts a toxic chain reaction, killing off or severely weakening the cells.
In a series of animal studies, antioxidant drugs have been able to counteract the exhaustion in animals, easing metabolic woes.
At the University of Michigan, for example, guinea pigs were blasted for five hours with 115 decibels of sound -- about the equivalent of a chainsaw. The racket devastated the pigs' hearing, with the animals losing as much as 50 dB in certain frequencies.
But this loss was "almost completely prevented by giving NAC (N-acetyl cysteine, an antioxidant) before the noise exposure," said Jochen Schacht, director of Michigan's Kresge Hearing Research Institute, in an e-mail. "The average deficit was about 5 dB -- a detriment that would probably not even be noticed by a human patient."
For years, studies have shown similar results in guinea pigs and chinchillas -- rodents from Peru, with about the same hearing range as people. Anecdotal reports from doctors who have given their patients NAC treatments have also been encouraging. But there hasn't been a full-scale, double-blind test in humans yet, Danielson notes. The ethics of exposing people to damaging amounts of noise has been one of several hurdles.
In the armed forces, however, earsplitting sounds are already commonplace. So, starting next month, according to Marine Corps Times, incoming grunts to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego will be given the antioxidant pills as part of a six-week trial."
"That's the main ingredient in a nutritional supplement being marketed by San Diego startup American BioHealth Group. Using a patent from Army Col. Robert Kopke, the doctor running the test on the Marine recruits, the company began selling its "Hearing Pill" last month.
Taking the pill, according to American BioHealth's website, will help in "the remediation of the mechanisms that lead to permanent hearing loss, either before or shortly after noise trauma.""
Pop a Pill, Save Your Hearing?
"People who've had their ears damaged by gunfire, jackhammers or punk rock have traditionally had two choices: get hearing aids, or suffer in silence.
But a new set of drugs, about to be tested on Marine recruits, is showing promise as a way to protect ears against the din.
"The conventional wisdom has been that there's no medical or surgical treatment for noise-induced hearing loss," said Richard Danielson, a professor of audiology at Baylor College of Medicine. "Only recently has there been the potential for chemical protection, maybe even recovery."
Noise causes harm either by tearing sections of the inner ear -- so-called "mechanical" damage -- or by overstressing some of the cells there. This "metabolic exhaustion" starts a toxic chain reaction, killing off or severely weakening the cells.
In a series of animal studies, antioxidant drugs have been able to counteract the exhaustion in animals, easing metabolic woes.
At the University of Michigan, for example, guinea pigs were blasted for five hours with 115 decibels of sound -- about the equivalent of a chainsaw. The racket devastated the pigs' hearing, with the animals losing as much as 50 dB in certain frequencies.
But this loss was "almost completely prevented by giving NAC (N-acetyl cysteine, an antioxidant) before the noise exposure," said Jochen Schacht, director of Michigan's Kresge Hearing Research Institute, in an e-mail. "The average deficit was about 5 dB -- a detriment that would probably not even be noticed by a human patient."
For years, studies have shown similar results in guinea pigs and chinchillas -- rodents from Peru, with about the same hearing range as people. Anecdotal reports from doctors who have given their patients NAC treatments have also been encouraging. But there hasn't been a full-scale, double-blind test in humans yet, Danielson notes. The ethics of exposing people to damaging amounts of noise has been one of several hurdles.
In the armed forces, however, earsplitting sounds are already commonplace. So, starting next month, according to Marine Corps Times, incoming grunts to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego will be given the antioxidant pills as part of a six-week trial."
"That's the main ingredient in a nutritional supplement being marketed by San Diego startup American BioHealth Group. Using a patent from Army Col. Robert Kopke, the doctor running the test on the Marine recruits, the company began selling its "Hearing Pill" last month.
Taking the pill, according to American BioHealth's website, will help in "the remediation of the mechanisms that lead to permanent hearing loss, either before or shortly after noise trauma.""
