Want to Protect Your Ears Against Loud Music? Ease Up on the Caffeine.

Everyone who’s ever been to a loud concert knows that underwater feeling the next day as your ears struggle to recover from being punished by sound pressure levels. Yeah, things go back to normal within a day or two as damaged tiny hairs in your inner ear regrow–but if you torture them too much, they’ll stop growing. The result is hearing loss.

Here’s something else to consider. Researchers at McGill in Montreal took two groups of animals, each of which was exposed to 110 dB of sound, which is roughly equivalent to a rock concert. This induced something called “auditory temporary threshold shift”–temporary hearing loss. One group was then given a daily dose of caffeine while the second group was given nothing. After eight days, the caffeine-free group saw their hearing return to normal while the other was still suffering from some kind of hearing loss. (Don’t ask me how they determined what the animals were hearing. But it’s science, okay?)

The research confirms a theory that recovery from hearing loss might be buggered up by the consumption of certain substances. Bottom line is that if you go to a loud concert, stay away from coffee and cola for a couple of days.

The full report can be found here.

(Via TheMusic.com.au)