The identification of ten new genetic markers should make it possible to predict a risk of reduced hearing quality with age.
- Age-related hearing loss affects one in three people over the age of 60
- The essential risk for the patient is to find himself in a situation of isolation
What if we could predict the risk of age-related hearing loss? Such screening with what it would allow as preventive support or as early care could avoid the most painful consequence of deteriorating hearing, isolation. And this is a real public health issue since today we already have a third of people over 60 who have difficulty hearing, a proportion that drops to half from the age of 80. Hence the importance of analyzing the genetic origins of this hearing loss. A work which made it possible to identify new genetic markers and which was published in the journal American Journal oh Human Genetics.
An essential area for hearing
The study is based on the analysis of data from 723,266 people which identified ten new markers in an area that was not suspected to be so essential for hearing, the stria vascularis. These are cells that line the side wall of the cochlea located in the inner ear. “Many genes associated with age-related hearing loss are expressed at this level,” the researchers point out. And it is the identification of these genes that could provide new targets for detecting and treating -including using gene therapies- hearing loss. These genes could be linked in 36 to 70% of cases to a decrease in hearing abilities.
A wide variety of causes related to lifestyle and the environment
A new way for complementary treatments to those that exist today and which are very focused on the restoration of the hair cells, the filamentous structures which line the inner ear and which are of two types: the outer hair cells which amplify the sound signal and the internal hair cells which transform the waves received into nerve impulses.
But this identification of new markers of age-related hearing loss only adds one more element to the management of hearing problems. These are indeed very varied and, above all, dependent on factors related to lifestyle or the environment.
