From Medpage Today

High-frequency sensorineural hearing impairment is a common but underdiagnosed complication of diabetes, according to two studies presented at a poster session at the American Diabetes Association meeting last week in New Orleans.

Kathleen E. Bainbridge, Ph.D., of Social & Scientific Systems in Silver Spring, Md., and Catherine C. Cowie, Ph.D., of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, presented information suggesting diabetic patients with poor glycemic control or vascular or neuropathic complications may also suffer from high frequency hearing loss.

Last year, Dr. Bainbridge and colleagues published a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that found an increased prevalence of hearing impairment among patients with diabetes.

In the current study, Drs. Bainbridge and Cowie looked specifically at which factors and characteristics in diabetes are associated with two types of hearing loss -- low-to-mid frequency and high-frequency.

They found a six-fold increased risk of high-frequency hearing loss associated with both peripheral neuropathy and coronary heart disease. Suboptimal glycemic control was also associated with a nearly threefold increased risk of high-frequency hearing impairment.

They found no evidence of low- to mid-frequency hearing impairment associated with peripheral neuropathy or glycemic control, and only weak evidence of an association with coronary heart disease.

Dr. Bainbridge noted that hearing loss was common in diabetic patients regardless of age.