Publisher Health

Tendons are what connect muscles to bones. They are relatively thin but have to withstand enormous forces. Tendons need a certain elasticity to absorb high loads, such as mechanical shock, without tearing. In sports involving sprinting and jumping, however, stiff tendons are an advantage because they transmit the forces that unfold in the muscles more directly to the bones. Appropriate training helps to achieve an optimal stiffening of the tendons.
Researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, working at Balgrist University Hospital in Zurich, have now deciphered how the cells of the tendons perceive mechanical stress and how they are able to adapt the tendons to the demands of the body. Their findings have just been published in the journal Nature Biomedical Engineering.
At the core of the newly discovered mechanism is a molecular force sensor in the tendon cells consisting of an ion channel protein. This sensor detects when the collagen fibres, that make up the tendons, shift against each other lengthwise. If such a strong shear movement occurs, the sensor allows calcium ions to flow into the tendon cells. This promotes the production of certain enzymes that link the collagen fibres together. As a result, the tendons lose elasticity and become stiffer and stronger.
Gene variant overreacts
Interestingly, the ion channel protein responsible for this occurs in different genetic variants in humans. A few years ago, other scientists found that a particular variant called E756del is clustered in individuals of West African ancestry. At that time, the importance of this protein for tendon stiffness was not yet known. One-third of individuals of African descent carry this gene variant, while it is rare in other populations. This gene variant protects its carriers from severe cases of the tropical disease malaria. Scientists assume that the variant was able to prevail in this population because of this advantage.
The researchers led by Jess Snedeker, Professor of Orthopaedic Biomechanics at ETH Zurich and the University of Zurich, have now shown that mice carrying this gene variant have stiffer tendons. They believe that tendons “overshoot” in their adaptive response to exercise due to this variant.
Major performance advantage
This also has direct effects on people’s ability to jump, as the scientists showed in a study with 65 African American volunteers. Of the participants, 22 carried the E756del variant of the gene, while the remaining 43 did not. To account for various factors that influence a person’s ability to jump (including physique, training, and general fitness), the researchers compared the performance during a slow and a fast jump. Tendons play only a minor role during slow jumping manoeuvres but are particularly important during fast jumps. With their study design, the scientists could isolate the effect of the gene variant on the jumping performance.
This showed that carriers of variant E756del performed 13 percent better on average. “It’s fascinating that a gene variant, which is positively selected due to an anti-malaria effect, at the same time is associated with better athletic abilities. We certainly did not expect to find this when we started the project,” says Fabian Passini, doctoral student in Snedeker’s group and first author of the study. It may well be that this gene variant explains in part why athletes hailing from countries with a high E756del frequency excel in world-class sports competitions, including sprinting, long-jumping and basketball. To date, there has been no scientific investigation into whether this gene variant is overrepresented among elite athletes. However, such a study would be of scientific interest, Passini says.
The findings about the force sensor and the mechanism by which tendons can adapt to physical demands are also important for physiotherapy. “We now have a better understanding of how tendons work. This should also help us treat tendon injuries better in future,” Snedeker says. In the medium term, it may also be possible to develop drugs that dock onto the newly discovered tendon force sensor. These could one day help to heal tendinopathies and other connective tissue disorders.
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Materials provided by ETH Zurich. Original written by Fabio Bergamin. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Today, The Lundquist Institute announced that Wei Yan, MD, PhD, and his research group have solved a longstanding mystery and scientific debate about the mechanism underlying the gamete and embryo transport within the Fallopian tube. Using a mouse model where the animals lacked motile cilia in the oviduct, Dr. Yan’s group demonstrated that motile cilia in the very distal end of the Fallopian tube, called infundibulum, are essential for oocyte pickup. Disruptions of the ciliary structure and/or beating patterns lead to failure in oocyte pickup and consequently, a loss of female fertility. Interestingly, motile cilia in other parts of the oviduct can facilitate sperm and embryo transport but are dispensable for female fertility. This is a critical finding because disrupted transport function is known to lead to female infertility and ectopic pregnancy. The research finding was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
“We are very excited about solving this longstanding mystery,” said Dr. Yan, “It is now clear that both motile cilia and smooth muscle participate in the transport function, and motile cilia are required for egg pickup, whereas smooth muscle contraction is more important for sperm and embryo transport.”
The Fallopian tube connects the ovary to the uterus and plays an essential role in female fertility. Functions of the Fallopian tube include picking up and transporting ovulated eggs to the fertilization site within the tube, called ampulla, where eggs meet sperm that manage to arrive. Once an egg is fertilized, the early embryo has to be transported from the Fallopian tube to the uterine cavity for implantation and the subsequent development. These functions are achieved by the three major cell types in the Fallopian tube: multiciliate cells, secretory cells and smooth muscle cells. Since both motile cilia beating and smooth muscle contraction can move objects, the arguments over which cell type controls the transport function have been ongoing for decades. Some scientists believe that it is the cilia beating that propels the gametes and early embryos, but others think that the rhythmic contraction of smooth muscle drives the movement. Knowing the mechanism underlying the gamete and embryo transport within the Fallopian tube is critical because disrupted transport function is known to lead to female infertility and ectopic pregnancy.
“Knowledge derived from the present study helps us understand the causes of female infertility and ectopic pregnancy, and the molecules essential for motile cilial functions represent a good target for developing nonhormonal female contraceptives,” added Yan.
Dr. Yan’s research focuses on development of non-hormonal contraceptives, genetic and epigenetic control of fertility, as well as epigenetic contribution of gametes (sperm and eggs) to fertilization, early embryonic development and adulthood health.
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Our brain is usually well protected from uncontrolled influx of molecules from the periphery thanks to the blood-brain barrier, a physical seal of cells lining the blood vessel walls. The hypothalamus, however, is a notable exception to this rule. Characterized by “leaky” blood vessels, this region, located at the base of the brain, is exposed to a variety of circulating bioactive molecules. This anatomical feature also determines its function as a rheostat involved in the coordination of energy sensing and feeding behavior.
Several hormones and nutrients are known to influence the feeding neurocircuit in the hypothalamus. Classic examples are leptin and insulin, both involved in informing the brain of available energy. In the last years, the list of appetite- or satiety-triggering signals has been steadily growing with the identification of several gut hormones. Those are involved in fine-tuning feeding behaviour by regulating the perception of hunger or satiety, ultimately leading to the initiation or termination of a meal. The gut-brain axis is thus a critical gatekeeper in regulating feeding behavior.
Bile acids are among the most abundant metabolites in the gut and act as versatile signalling molecules that relay nutrient availability to a physiological response by activating the bile acid responsive membrane receptor, Takeda G-coupled receptor 5 (TGR5). Although the ancient Greeks already postulated that bile may affect our state of mind, we know very little about the signaling role of these metabolites in the brain.
In a new study from the Schoonjans’ lab at EPFL, together with the EPFL Brain Mind Institute and Bertarelli Platform for Gene Therapy, and several collaborators from France, Italy and the US, the authors showed that bile acids reach the mouse brain shortly after a meal to suppress food intake. Bile acids escape the digestive tract, transiently accumulate in the blood circulation, and spike in the hypothalamus for a very short period of time after feeding. The authors demonstrated that the anorexic response of bile acids is mediated by TGR5, located at the cell surface of a distinct group of hypothalamic cells, called AgRP/NPY neurons. When focusing on this neuronal subpopulation, they found that bile acids mediate two processes staggered in time. “While bile acids acutely block the release of appetite-stimulating AgRP and NPY peptides during the first minutes following binding of their cognate receptor, they further reinforce the repression by blunting the expression of these neurotransmitters” says Alessia Perino, first-author of the paper.
Over the last two decades, bile acids have been proven to be efficacious in alleviating chronic metabolic and inflammatory disorders. Previous studies from the Schoonjans lab demonstrated that systemic TGR5 activation attenuates obesity in diet-induced obese mice. The current study reveals that the bile acid-TGR5 signaling axis is not only important in disease, but also in the physiological control of eating behavior. In the absence of dietary fat, bile acids temporarily suppress food intake without affecting the normal energy balance. “This is not surprising as homeostasis is about a self-regulatory process in which systems tend to maintain stability” says Kristina Schoonjans. “In contrast, chronic high fat diet feeding may override this equilibrium. It will be interesting to find out whether the identified neurocircuits contribute to the known body weight reducing effect of bile acids in the setting of diet-induced obesity.”
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A new low-cost and sustainable technique would boost the possibilities for hospitals and clinics to deliver therapeutics with aerogels, a foam-like material now found in such high-tech applications as insulation for spacesuits and breathable plasters.
With the help of an ordinary kitchen freezer, this newest form of aerogel was made from all natural ingredients, including plant cellulose and algae, says Jowan Rostami, a researcher in fibre technology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.
Rostami says that the aerogel’s low density and favorable surface area make it ideal for a wide range of uses, including timed release of medication and wound dressing.
The advance was reported in the scientific journal, Materials Today, by researchers from the Department of Fibre and Polymer Technology at KTH, the Department of Engineering Mechanics at KTH, the Wallenberg Wood Science Centre at KTH, and the Division of Solid Mechanics at Lund University.
The aerogel’s density could be pushed down to as low levels as 2kg per cubic meter, which her research team believes is among the lowest recorded densities for similar materials, she says.
“To give you an idea of how light that is — the density of air is 1.23 kg per cubic meter.”
In order to demonstrate that the material can be used for controlled delivery of therapeutics., the researchers attached proteins to the aerogel through a water-based self-assembly process.

By making a game out of getting their daily steps, new research points to the possibility that people with diabetes could be nudged toward increasing their physical activity, with changes lasting for a full year. Since many now use apps or other digital means to manage their diabetes, this program — which utilized tools like wearable step counters and electronic scales with personalized goals — could potentially be integrated to help individuals achieve greater success. Findings from the study, conducted by a team from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, were published today in JAMA Network Open.
“Gamification is commonly used in wellness programs and smartphone apps, but often is not designed to incorporate insights on how people behave and have not been well-tested over longer periods,” said the paper’s lead author, Mitesh Patel, MD, the director of Penn Medicine’s Nudge Unit. “In this one-year trial, we found that gamification worked best to increase activity levels when it was designed using behavioral insights to encourage either competition with others or support from a family member or friend. This is encouraging and suggests that these interventions could be an effective way to build a lasting, new exercise habit for this population.”
Roughly one in 10 Americans have diabetes. One way to get a better control over the disease is for patients to increase their levels of physical activity. This makes their bodies “more sensitive” to insulin, a hormone that regulates blood sugar in the body. And that sensitivity makes their bodies less likely to suffer dangerous spikes or crashes in blood sugar levels.
Patel and his colleagues in the Nudge Unit have conducted several investigations into how “gamification” — the application of game-like concepts such as goals, competition, and levels — can increase physical activity levels.
In this study, like some of the past research, participants — who this time all had type 2 diabetes and were overweight or obese — were randomly broken out into four even groups. The first, a control group, received a wearable, electronic step counter and an electronic scale, both of which gave them feedback on their step counts and weight. The three gamified arms of the study received these as well, but they also were given personalized goals on steps, weight, and blood sugar levels, the three things being measured for this study. Those goals corresponded with a system the team set up around achieving points and striving to move up levels. Each patient, whether they were in the control or a gamified arm, participated over a 12-month span.
The first gamified arm centered on competition, with groups of three random patients being notified of each other’s accomplishments each week. The second also grouped patients into threes, but focused on collaboration, with one participant representing the group each day, striving to score points and level up on behalf of everyone. The last arm of the study focused on support, in which a participant selected someone outside of the study arm who would get emailed updates on their progress and could motivate or cheer them on as they progressed.
In total, 361 people participated in the trial, which was run from 2017 until 2020.
When each group’s performance was analyzed, the researchers saw that the step counts for those who participated in the competitive and support arms of gamification significantly increased their step counts over the year they participated. The support group increased their steps by an average of 503 steps more than the non-gamified control group; the competition participants increased by an average of 606 steps. The collaboration participants increased their steps by 280 compared to the control group, but that was not enough to be considered a significant finding.
Across the board, participants experienced weight loss and a reduction in blood sugar, whether they were in a gamified or control group. There was not a significant difference from one group to the next when it came to these measures.
“This study is a great first step on building a lasting exercise habit,” Patel said. “However, more work is needed to help promote weight loss and better glycemic control. Future studies could combine gamification with other approaches to target changes in clinical outcomes.”
Patel and his colleagues believe this latest study provides further evidence that gamification, when informed by behavioral science concepts, can be a powerful tool for nudging people toward healthier habits.
“Wearable devices and digital weight scales are increasingly being adopted,” said the study’s senior author, Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD, director of the Penn Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics and a professor in Health Policy. “In addition to our findings about gamification, we believe that our clinical trial shows these technologies are powerful when combined with behavioral science to guide people toward better habits and better health.”

Scientists at the University of York have made significant progress in the development of a nasal spray treatment for patients with Parkinson’s disease.
Researchers have developed a new gel that can adhere to tissue inside the nose alongside the drug levodopa, helping deliver treatment directly to the brain.
Levodopa is converted to dopamine in the brain, which makes-up for the deficit of dopamine-producing cells in Parkinson’s patients, and helps treat the symptoms of the disease. Over extended periods of time, however, levodopa becomes less effective, and increased doses are needed.
Professor David Smith, from the University of York’s Department of Chemistry, said: “The current drug used for Parkinson’s Disease is effective to a point, but after a long period of use the body starts to breakdown the drug before it gets to the brain where it is most needed.
“This means increased dosage is necessary, and in later stages, sometimes, instead of tablets, the drug has to be injected. Investigations into nasal sprays have long been of interest as a more effective delivery because of its direct route to the brain via the nerves that service the nose, but the challenge here is to find a way of making it adhere to the nasal tissue long enough to release a good dosage of the drug.”
The researchers created a gel, loaded with levodopa, that could flow into the nose as a liquid and then rapidly change to a thin layer of gel inside the nose. The method was tested in animal models by a team at King’s College London, where levodopa was successfully released from the gel into the blood and directly to the brain.
Professor Smith said: “The results indicated that the gel gave the drug better adhesion inside the nose, which allowed for better levels of uptake into both the blood and brain.”
The team are now working to incorporate these materials in nasal spray devices to progress to clinical trials in humans. The approach may also be relevant to other neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
Khuloud Al-Jamal, Professor of Drug Delivery and Nanomedicine from King’s College London, said: “Not only did the gel perform better than a simple solution, but the brain uptake was better than that achieved using intravenous injection of the drug. This suggests that nasal delivery of Parkinson’s drugs using this type of gel may have clinical relevance.”
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Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed an algorithm that combines data from a simple blood test and brief memory tests, to predict with great accuracy who will develop Alzheimer’s disease in the future. The findings are published in Nature Medicine.
Approximately 20-30% of patients with Alzheimer’s disease are wrongly diagnosed within specialist healthcare, and diagnostic work-up is even more difficult in primary care. Accuracy can be significantly improved by measuring the proteins tau and beta-amyloid via a spinal fluid sample, or PET scan. However, those methods are expensive and only available at a relatively few specialized memory clinics worldwide. Early and accurate diagnosis of AD is becoming even more important, as new drugs that slow down the progression of the disease will hopefully soon become available.
A research group led by Professor Oskar Hansson at Lund University have now shown that a combination of relatively easily acccessible tests can be used for early and reliable diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. The study examined 340 patients with mild memory impairment in the Swedish BioFINDER Study, and the results were confirmed in a North American study of 543 people.
A combination of a simple blood test (measuring a variant of the tau protein and a risk gene for Alzheimer’s) and three brief cognitive tests that only take 10 minutes to complete, predicted with over 90% certainty which patients would develop Alzheimer’s dementia within four years. This simple prognostic algorithm was significantly more accurate than the clinical predictions by the dementia experts who examined the patients, but did not have access to expensive spinal fluid testing or PET scans, said Oskar Hansson.
“Our algorithm is based on a blood analysis of phosphylated tau and a risk gene for Alzheimer’s, combined with testing of memory and executive function. We have now developed a prototype online tool to estimate the individual risk of a person with mild memory complaints developing Alzheimer’s dementia within four years,” explains Sebastian Palmqvist, first author of the study and associate professor at Lund University.
One clear advantage of the algorithm is that it has been developed for use in clinics without access to advanced diagnostic instruments. In the future, the algorithm might therefore make a major difference in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s within primary healthcare.
“The algorithm has currently only been tested on patients who have been examined in memory clinics. Our hope is that it will also be validated for use in primary healthcare as well as in developing countries with limited resources,” says Sebastian Palmqvist.
Simple diagnostic tools for Alzheimer’s could also improve the development of drugs, as it is difficult to recruit the suitable study partcipants for drug trials in a time- and cost-effective manner.
“The algorithm will enable us to recruit people with Alzheimer’s at an early stage, which is when new drugs have a better chance of slowing the course of the disease,” concludes Professor Oskar Hansson.
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In 2018, the Camp Fire ripped through the town of Paradise, California at an unprecedented rate. Officials had prepared an evacuation plan that required 3 hours to get residents to safety. The fire, bigger and faster than ever before, spread to the community in only 90 minutes.
As climate change intensifies, wildfires in the West are behaving in ways that were unimaginable in the past — and the common disaster response approaches are woefully unprepared for this new reality. In a recent study, a team of researchers led by the University of Utah proposed a framework for simulating dire scenarios, which the authors define as scenarios where there is less time to evacuate an area than is required. The paper, published on April 21, 2021 in the journal Natural Hazards Review, found that minimizing losses during dire scenarios involves elements that are not represented in current simulation models, among them improvisation and altruism.
“The world is dealing with situations that exceed our worst case scenarios,” said lead author Thomas Cova, professor of geography at the U. “Basically we’re calling for planning for the unprecedented, which is a tough thing to do.”
Most emergency officials in fire-prone regions develop evacuation plans based on the assumptions that wildfires and residents will behave predictably based on past events. However, recent devastating wildfires in Oregon, California and other western states have shown that those assumptions may no longer hold.
“Wildfires are really becoming more unpredictable due to climate change. And from a psychological perspective, we have people in the same area being evacuated multiple times in the past 10 years. So, when evacuation orders come, people think, ‘Well, nothing happened the last few times. I’m staying,'” said Frank Drews, professor of psychology at the U and co-author of the study. “Given the reality of climate change, it’s important to critically assess where we are and say, ‘Maybe we can’t count on certain assumptions like we did in the past.'”
How to predict the unprecedented
The framework allows planners to create a dire wildfire scenario — when the lead time, defined as the time before the fire reaches a community to respond, is less than the time required to evacuate. The authors developed a scoring system that categorizes each scenario as routine, dire, very dire or extremely dire based on many different factors.

More than 160 illnesses and dozens of hospitalizations have been reported across 43 states, officials said. “These are not house pets and a lot of people confuse that,” a poultry educator said.A salmonella outbreak linked to backyard poultry has prompted U.S. health officials to issue a stern warning: Don’t kiss or snuggle your ducks and chickens.There have been 163 illnesses and 34 hospitalizations reported across 43 states, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last week. North Carolina had the most reported cases, with 13, followed by Iowa, with 11. About a third of the cases were in children under 5, the agency said.The true number of sick people is most likely higher as many recover without medical attention and are not tested for salmonella, the C.D.C. said.The likely source of the outbreak is contact with backyard poultry, the agency said.“Don’t kiss or snuggle the birds, as this can spread germs to your mouth and make you sick,” the agency said.That was among the guidelines that the C.D.C. offered to people who keep poultry at home, whether they are experienced owners or building their first backyard coop. They should always wash their hands for 20 seconds after contact with birds or related supplies, the agency said, and should not allow children under 5 to touch the birds.Emily Shoop, a poultry educator at Penn State Extension, said on Monday that raising poultry was “the fastest-growing animal-related hobby in the United States.”The C.D.C. has routinely issued similar guidelines over the years, she said, adding that this is the time of year when hatcheries and feed stores sell chicks to people starting at-home flocks.“They get those chickens home, they snuggle them close to their face or they kiss them, and then we see some mistakes and a salmonella outbreak,” Ms. Shoop said. “The best way to prevent that is to wash your hands after you touch chickens, their manure, their eggs or their meat.”Animals can pick up salmonella from contaminated food, or the bacteria can live naturally in their intestines. Some can even pick up the bacteria from their mothers before they are born, according to the C.D.C.’s website.Raising backyard poultry has become more common in recent years and some have described the process of raising chickens as an exercise of cross-species respect.Chick sales often rise in periods of anxiety or economic stress, such as stock market downturns and presidential election years. At the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, a combination of unemployment, anxious free time for those not struggling with illness, and financial instability led to people panic-buying chickens much as they did toilet paper. Many were first-time buyers.Though their intentions may have been good, there were health consequences. By the middle of December 2020, there had been more than 1,700 salmonella infections across all 50 states, the C.D.C. said, noting that contact with backyard poultry was the likely source of the outbreaks. More than 300 people were hospitalized and one death was reported. The number of illnesses reported was higher than in any previous outbreak linked to backyard flocks, officials said.Ms. Shoop said there was a risk with any type of livestock. “These are not house pets, and a lot of people confuse that,” she said. Poultry, she said, are typically kept outside and away from food-preparation areas.“If you are going snuggle them close to your face or mouth, you probably ought to wash your face and brush your teeth too just to prevent any cross contamination from those birds,” she said. “Chickens aren’t dirty animals by any means, but they naturally have a lot of bacteria around their bodies.”

Hearing loss is the third most common chronic health condition in the United States. Previous studies of people with hearing loss have uncovered higher prevalence of osteoporosis — a disease in which the bones become weak and brittle — and low bone density (LBD). But research on whether these conditions may influence risk of hearing loss over time is scarce. It is also unknown whether hearing loss can be avoided by taking bisphosphonates, the primary medication used to prevent fractures in people with reduced bone density. As part of the Conservation of Hearing Study (CHEARS), researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital analyzed data from nearly 144,000 women who were followed for up to 34 years. They found that risk of subsequent moderate or worse hearing loss was up to 40 percent higher in study participants with osteoporosis or LBD. The study, published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society, also found that bisphosphonates did not alter risk of hearing loss.
“Adult onset hearing loss is typically irreversible; therefore, CHEARS focuses on identifying potentially modifiable risk factors that may contribute to hearing loss,” said study leader Sharon Curhan, MD, ScM, of the Channing Division of Network Medicine at the Brigham. “We were inspired by a recent study that found that bisphosphonates may help prevent noise-induced hearing damage in mice. We wanted to investigate whether bisphosphonates alter risk of hearing loss in adults, in addition to whether there is a longitudinal association between osteoporosis or LBD and risk of subsequent hearing loss.”
For their analysis, the researchers used data from the decades-long Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and NHS II, two large ongoing prospective cohorts of female registered nurses, established in 1976 and 1989, respectively. The researchers examined hearing loss that was moderate or worse in severity, as self-reported by participants on questionnaires completed every two years. Additionally, they used the CHEARS Audiometry Assessment Arm to incorporate data on participants’ audiometric thresholds (a measure of hearing sensitivity based on the loudness of sound).
In both the NHS and NHS II cohorts, the researchers found that the risk of hearing loss was higher in women with osteoporosis or LBD, and that taking bisphosphonates did not moderate the elevated risk. More research is required to understand whether the type, dose or timing of bisphosphonate use might influence its impact.
The researchers found that a history of vertebral fracture was associated with up to a 40 percent higher risk of hearing loss, but the same did not hold true for hip fractures, the two most common osteoporosis-related fractures. “The differing findings between these skeletal sites may reflect differences in the composition and metabolism of the bones in the spine and in the hip,” Curhan said. “These findings could provide new insight into the changes in the bone that surrounds the middle and inner ear that may contribute to hearing loss.”
While the underlying mechanisms by which osteoporosis and LBD may contribute to aging-related hearing loss remain unclear, the researchers suggest that abnormal bone remodeling and changes in the pathways involved in maintaining bone homeostasis may influence the integrity of the bone that protects the nerves and structures involved in hearing or alter ion and fluid metabolism in the cochlea, the main structure involved in hearing.
Advantages of using data from these well-characterized cohorts include the large study population, extensive array of detailed information, impressive follow-up rates and reliable information on health-related outcomes, as the participants are trained health care providers. However, the researchers note that their study is limited in its generalizability, as participants are predominantly white, with similar educational achievements and socio-economic statuses. Curhan points out that additional studies that examine these associations in men and non-white women would be informative.
Additionally, the investigators plan to examine in the future whether calcium and vitamin D intake are associated with hearing loss, as they have been shown to help prevent osteoporosis. Previously, the researchers found that eating a healthy diet, staying physically active, not smoking, and maintaining a healthy weight all help reduce the risk of hearing loss.
“Osteoporosis and low bone density may be important contributors to aging-related hearing loss,” Curhan said. “Building lifelong healthy diet and lifestyle habits could provide important benefits for protecting bone and hearing health in the future.”
This research was supported by the National Institutes of Health (DC010811, AR075117, UM1 CA186107, and UO1 CA176726).
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