Kang SH, et al. - The link between sarcopenia and hearing loss (HL) underwent a scrutiny in postmenopausal Korean women. A probable correlation was revealed among both. This data could assist in screening audiometry, in patients with sarcopenia.

Methods

• 4,038 postmenopausal women were recruited.
• They were allocated into two groups based on criteria from the Foundation for the National Institute of Health Sarcopenia Project: A normal group (sarcopenia index ≥ 0.512) and a sarcopenia group (sarcopenia index < 0.512).
• Low-frequency (Low-Freq), mid-frequency (Mid-Freq), and high-frequency (High-Freq) values were yielded.
• An estimation was pursued of the average hearing threshold (AHT) as the pure tone average at the 4 frequencies of 0.5 kHz, 1 kHz, 2 kHz, and 3 kHz.
• Mild HL was as an AHT of 24 to 40 dB; moderate-to-profound HL was defined as an AHT of 40 dB or greater.

Results

• 272 (6.7%) of the enrollees were allocated to the sarcopenia group, leaving 3,766 (93.3%) in the normal group.
• A marked variation was noted in the groups in terms of having hypertension (775 [20.6%] vs. 108 [39.7%]; P < 0.001) or metabolic syndrome (817 [21.7%] vs. 110 [40.4%]; P < 0.001) in the normal and sarcopenia groups, respectively.
• Visceral fat area (cm³) in the normal and sarcopenia groups was 99.0 ± 21.9 cm³ and 117.0± 21.8 cm³ , respectively (P < 0.001).
• Higher hsCRP level was determined in the sarcopenia group than in the normal group.
• For univariate and multivariate analyses, all 4 hearing thresholds were higher in the sarcopenia group than in the normal group.
• The linear regression analyses demonstrated Low-Freq, Mid-Freq, and High-Freq to be inversely correlated with the sarcopenia index.
• The unadjusted OR for mild HL was 2.692 (95% CI, 1.963-3.692; P < 0.001) in the sarcopenia group relative to the normal group, with an adjusted OR of 1.584 (95% CI, 1.131-2.217; P = 0.007).
• The unadjusted OR for moderate-to-profound HL in the sarcopenia group relative to the normal group was 6.246 (95% CI, 4.530-8.612; P < 0.001); the adjusted OR was 2.667 (95% CI, 1.866-3.812; P < 0.001).