Hows your hearing these days? When you pop down to your local wine bar, do you ever have a hard time hearing conversation around you? Perhaps find yourself having to ask people to repeat themselves and then blame it on the background noise in the bar? The reason I ask is that a new study suggests that it may not just be because of the noise in the bar. UK researchers have found that ALCOHOL seems to temporarily drain a person's hearing - particularly when it comes to discerning the sounds of conversation. In a study of 30 healthy volunteers, they found that as participants drank, their hearing became less acute and lower frequency hearing, which is necessary for discerning speech, suffered the most. They are calling this new phenomenon ‘Cocktail Deafness’ but don't let that fool ya as Cocktails were not the only things being sipped by the volunteers. Actually it’s not so surprising to hear that alcohol affects the hearing. It affects pretty much everything else as well. In general, the researchers found, the higher a volunteer's alcohol level - as measured by breath test -- the greater the deterioration in hearing. The hearing loss tended to be more significant in relatively older volunteers, as well as those who said they had a history of heavy drinking. The researchers are not too clear on just WHY drinking alcohol may have this effect, but they say that alcohol could either damage the auditory nerves or affect the brain's processing of sound. Ahh well! The eyes, and the back have already gone, I guess the ears are next. Cheers! Or should I say ChEARS?.
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