Snack Size Science: Hearing about folate’s benefits

The following is a transcript of the podcast:

This is NutraIngredients’s Snack Size Science​. I’m Stephen Daniells - bringing you the week’s top science in digestible amounts.

Now listen carefully - This week we look at the link between green leafy vegetables and hearing. A study presented at this week’s annual meeting of the American Academy of Otolaryngology reported that getting grandpa to eat his greens and lentils may put an end to hearing aids. Meeting attendees heard from Boston-based boffins how increased intakes of folate may help prevent hearing loss in men by 20 per cent.

With hearing loss being the most common disorder of the senses in the United States, affecting more than 36 million people, ensuring optimal folate intakes via the diet or from supplements may reduce the health cost burden of hearing aids.

Whispers of benefits for the antioxidant vitamins C and E from previous studies failed to develop into shouts of support, however – no benefits from C and E were recorded.

Getting back to folate, this is not the first time the B vitamin has been linked to the prevention of hearing loss. In 2007 scientists from Wageningen University reported that folic acid supplements delayed age-related hearing loss in the [deepen voice here] low frequency region.

If future studies support the benefits of folate, sooner or later people are going to have sit up and listen.

For NutraIngredients’ Snack Size Science​, I’m Stephen Daniells.