Kids with Diabetes Often Have Impaired
Hearing
DELHI (Reuters Health) - Hearing loss occurs early during the course of uncontrolled type 1 diabetes in children, researchers report. They say diabetic damage to nerves or blood vessels might be the cause.
Dr. Abdelaziz Elamin, of Sultan Qaboos University in Muscat, Oman, and colleagues followed 63 children younger than 18 years old with a confirmed diagnosis of type 1 diabetes, who were seen at the Khartoum Teaching Hospital, Sudan.
The children had had the disease for an average of five years at the time of study, and the condition was poorly controlled, the team notes.
Hearing assessments showed that all the children had some degree of hearing loss, but one-third of them had a loss of over 25 decibels that indicates functional impairment, the researchers report in the medical journal Indian Pediatrics.
Hearing loss was predominantly in the
middle and high frequencies, which can affect speech discrimination, they
add. Overall, the hearing deficit correlated
with the duration of diabetes, degree of control and insulin requirement.
High-frequency hearing loss was associated with other complications
involving the kidneys and retina, indicating that damage to blood vessels
might be involved. Blockage of the capillaries supplying
blood to the inner ear, or damage to nerves involved in hearing, or a
combination of the two could be responsible for the hearing impairment in
type 1 diabetes, Elamin and colleagues suggest. They think that tighter diabetes control
"might prevent or delay this complication." SOURCE: Indian Pediatrics, January 2005.