European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Diabetes mellitus is a disease that occurs due to the partial or complete dysfunctioning of the pancreas, thereby reducing the amount of insulin secretion in the body. Type II diabetes mellitus is commonly seen in the middle age group individuals, and can lead to a variety of systemic consequences involving multiple systems. One of the known complications of diabetes mellitus is hearing loss and tinnitus. The degenerative process, owing to type II diabetes mellitus affects the microvasculature of the hearing apparatus, the cochlea and the cochlear nerve

Background:The relationship between sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) and Diabetes mellitus has been known age ago. The pathophysiology of diabetes related hearing loss is speculative. Hearing loss is usually, bilateral, gradual onset, affecting higher frequencies.
Aim: To find the prevalence of Sensorineural Hearing Loss in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus patients.
Materials and methods:This is a cross-sectional study, which included 140 diabetics of age group 30 to 50 as cases. All the subjects were subjected to the estimation of FBS, PPBS, HbA1c and pure tone audiometry. Various biochemical and audiological investigations have revealed that there is a strong association with sensorineural hearing loss and Diabetes Mellitus.
Results:The prevalence of sensorineural hearing loss in type II diabetics has been proved to be 66.43%. In the majority of the patients the hearing loss was bilateral progressive and symmetrical affecting higher frequencies of 4 KHz to 8KHz. It was seen that 93 diabetics had sensorineural hearing loss out of which 2 of them had sudden onset hearing loss. Rest of them had progressive hearing loss. The occurrence of hearing loss was matched for age, sex, duration of diabetes, and control of diabetes. It had positive correlation with increased age of the patient and duration of diabetes. There was no significant difference in hearing loss among the two sex groups.
Conclusion:The control of diabetes was measured with glycated hemoglobin which had a correlation with hearing deficit. Patients with poor control (HbA1c greater than 8%) of their glycemic status have increased auditory thresholds.