You won’t believe this overlooked cause can be behind heart failure; new study unveils shocking results

A new study has discovered that hearing impairment often results in an increased risk of heart failure in human beings. According to the study, psychological distress caused by hearing impairment plays a “notable” role in developing problems with the heart. Experts in China analyzed data from the UK Biobank, studying 164,431 people who took hearing tests designed to determine hearing ability for the research. Out of all participants, about 160,062 didn’t use hearing aids.

Heart failure happens when the heart cannot pump blood effectively, leading to symptoms like fatigue, shortness of breath, and swelling in the legs and ankles. According to the Independent, test participants were split into three groups based on how they performed in a digit triplet test (DTT), which checks for hearing issues by using random digit combinations against the background noise.

It is pertinent to mention that, none of the people included in the initial analysis had heart failure, but over more than 11 years of follow-up, about 4,449 developed the condition.

What did the research find

Following the study, the researchers discovered that those who had a higher speech reception threshold (SRT), meaning they required louder speech to understand words, had an increased risk of heart failure. “Compared with those with normal hearing, participants with insufficient hearing, poor hearing, or hearing aid use had higher heart failure risks,” researchers were quoted by The Independent as saying.

Among people who didn’t use hearing aids, high SRT levels were also linked to psychological distress, social isolation, and neuroticism. “We have been the first to demonstrate that poor hearing ability is significantly associated with a higher risk of incident heart failure in the general population,” the researchers further stated.

“Psychological factors, especially psychological distress, play a significant mediating role in this association. If further confirmed, hearing impairment may be a potential risk factor or marker for incident heart failure in the general population, highlighting the importance of integrating hearing health assessments into broader cardiovascular risk evaluation frameworks. Moreover, strengthening psychological intervention in people with hearing impairment may be an important path and strategy to reduce the risk of heart failure,” they continued.