GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Vitamin supplements can prevent hearing loss in laboratory animals, according to two new studies, bringing investigators one step closer to the development of a pill that could stave off noise-induced and perhaps even age-related hearing loss in humans.

The findings will be reported Wednesday at the Association for Research in Otolaryngology’s annual conference in Baltimore by senior author Colleen Le Prell, a researcher at the University of Florida.

The supplements used in the research studies are composed of antioxidants — beta carotene and vitamins C and E — and the mineral magnesium. When administered prior to exposure to loud noise, the supplements prevented both temporary and permanent hearing loss in test animals.

“What is appealing about this vitamin ‘cocktail’ is that previous studies in humans, including those demonstrating successful use of these supplements in protecting eye health, have shown that supplements of these particular vitamins are safe for long-term use,” said Le Prell, an associate professor in the UF College of Public Health and Health Professions’ department of communicative disorders.

About 26 million Americans have noise-induced hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, the agency that funded the studies.

In the first study, UF, University of Michigan and OtoMedicine scientists gave guinea pigs the vitamin supplements prior to a four-hour exposure to noise at 110 decibels, similar to levels reached at a loud concert. Researchers assessed the animals’ hearing by measuring sound-evoked neural activity and found that the treatment successfully prevented temporary hearing loss in the animals.

In humans, temporary noise-induced hearing loss, often accompanied by ringing in the ears, typically goes away after a few hours or days as the cells in the inner ear heal. Because repeated temporary hearing loss can lead to permanent hearing loss, the scientists speculate that prevention of temporary changes may ultimately prevent permanent changes.

In the second, related study in mice, UF, Washington University in St. Louis and OtoMedicine researchers showed that the supplements prevented permanent noise-induced hearing loss that occurs after a single loud sound exposure. The researchers found that the supplements prevented cell loss in an inner ear structure called the lateral wall, which is linked to age-related hearing loss, leading the scientists to believe these micronutrients may protect the ear against age-related changes in hearing.

“I am very encouraged by these results that we may be able to find a way to diminish permanent threshold shift with noise exposure,” said Dr. Debara Tucci, an associate professor of surgery in the otolaryngology division at Duke University Medical Center. “I look forward to hearing Dr. Le Prell’s work and reviewing her data.”

The research builds on previous studies that demonstrated hearing loss is not just caused by intense vibrations produced by loud noises that tear the delicate structures of the inner ear, as once thought, said Josef Miller, who has studied the mechanisms of hearing impairment for more than 20 years and is a frequent collaborator of Le Prell’s. Researchers now know noise-induced hearing loss is largely caused by the production of free radicals, which destroy healthy inner ear cells.

“The free radicals literally punch holes in the membrane of the cells,” said Miller, the Townsend professor of communicative disorders at the University of Michigan.

Miller is the co-founder of OtoMedicine, a University of Michigan spinoff company that has patented AuraQuell, the vitamin supplement formula used in the studies.

The antioxidant vitamins prevent hearing damage by “scavenging” the free radicals. Magnesium, which is not a traditional antioxidant, is added to the supplement mix to preserve blood flow to the inner ear and aid in healing.

Antioxidant supplements can also provide “post-noise rescue,” Le Prell said. A previous study by Le Prell and Miller showed that antioxidants can protect hearing days after exposure to loud noise.

“We found that the antioxidant combination of vitamin E and salicylate — the active agent in aspirin –effectively prevented cell death and permanent noise-induced hearing loss even when treatments were delayed up to three days after noise insult,” she said.

The researchers are collaborating on National Institutes of Health-funded clinical trials of the vitamin supplements in college students at UF who wear MP3 music players, and noise-exposed military troops and factory workers in Sweden and Spain.

If the trials show that the vitamins are as effective in preventing noise-induced hearing loss in humans as they have been in animals, Le Prell and Miller envision an easy-to-use supplement that could come in the form of a pill for people headed to a rock concert, a daily supplement for factory workers or a nutritional bar included in soldiers’ rations.

“Ear protection, such as ear plugs, is always the best practice for the prevention of noise-induced hearing loss, but in those populations who don’t or can’t wear hearing protection, for people in which mechanical devices just aren’t enough, and for people who may experience unexpected noise insult, these supplements could provide an opportunity for additional protection,” Le Prell said.

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Jill Pease, jpease@phhp.ufl.edu, 352-273-5816

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If you go to the grocery store, health food store, or pharmacy to buy vitamins and supplements for nutritional reasons, you may be surprised at how many different types and varieties there are on the shelves.  It used to be that every store where vitamins and supplements were available only had one aisle of these products; but now there are whole sections and even entire stores dedicated to selling vitamins and supplements.

If you read an article on vitamins and supplements and decide to purchase them for nutritional reasons, having this many different products available can be confusing.  Each vitamin and supplement may come in several different forms and also different dosages.  For example, Vitamin C can come in a liquid form, pill form, or can even be combined with other vitamins to produce a specific result.  It can be sold in different doses and even different measurements like milligrams and IU’s that you may not understand.   It can also be frustrating to make a choice if there are ten or twenty different brands available.

So if you want to buy vitamins and supplements to boost your health, where do you start?  If you are just looking for general health improvement, then you might want to consider a standard multivitamin.  A multivitamin has all the nutrients that the human body needs to function normally.  A multivitamin is a good idea if you are generally healthy and want to make sure that if you don’t always eat right, you still get the right amount of vitamins and minerals that you need on a daily basis.  The great thing about a multivitamin is that the dose of the vitamins is already premeasured so that you get the right amount to supplement your diet.

Some consumers buy vitamins and supplements for help with common maladies like colds and flu. This is one of the biggest markets for vitamins and supplements, because many people would rather buy a vitamin or supplement to prevent colds and flu rather than take medications to relieve the symptoms once they become ill.  There are many vitamins and supplements that can help if you think you are coming down with something, but be very careful when you start to purchase vitamins and supplements to prevent a cold.  Many companies have very misleading packaging for their vitamins and supplements that promise more than what they can deliver.  Just make sure to use common sense when purchasing vitamins and supplements to prevent a cold or the flu.   
 
Many people also purchase vitamins and supplements to cure more serious illnesses like diabetes or cancer.  There is still a disagreement in the medical community as to whether this should be attempted, so before buying vitamins and supplements to treat any kind of serious illness, you should consult your doctor.  Many doctors who used to be opposed to a vitamin and supplement regimen to cure serious diseases are now open to them as an alternative to traditional medicine.  However, even doctors who recommend trying alternative medicine will never have a patient try to cure a serious illness with vitamins and supplements alone.

Vitamins and supplements have come a long way in recent years and the new choices are exciting for consumers who want to improve their health without drugs.  The best thing to do when purchasing vitamins and supplements is to read the label to find out which brand and dosage will work best for your particular situation.  You can also research vitamins and supplements on the internet, so that when you go to the store, you will know exactly what brand and dosage to buy.

Article Written By J. Foley

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If you’ve decided to start purchasing vitamins and supplements, you will notice one distinct characteristic about them.  They are extremely expensive!  If you go to the health food store and only purchase three or four bottles of supplements, the total can easily be well over a hundred dollars.  Assuming that each bottle has only a month’s supply, if you are on a serious supplement regimen,  it could possibly cost you up to a couple of hundred dollars a month if you buy the premium brands of vitamins.  So here are a few tips on how to get your vitamins for the cheapest price and still enjoy the benefits associated with the most expensive name brands.

Tip #1:  Don’t pay more for the fancy label.  Many vitamins and supplements come in very ornate looking packaging.  However, once you start reading the fancy label, if you don’t see any difference between its ingredients and the cheaper brands’ – that’s probably because there is no difference.  A lot of times, you are paying more for the name on the bottle because you are paying for the advertising the company puts out.  In reality, vitamins from companies with a huge difference in price from other brands actually come from the same factory.

Tip #2:  Generic brands are just as good as name brands and cost about half as much.  Again, read the label.  If the generic has the same ingredients as its competitors; it is the same thing.  In fact, many companies put out a generic brand along with their name brand to capture price-conscious shoppers along with their more discerning customers.  On some generic labels, you can even see a “distributed by” in fine print on the back of the bottle.  Always buy generic when you can to save money.

Tip #3:  Most chain supplement stores have a preferred member discount card.  If you shop on certain days of the week or by certain products, you can really save a lot of money.  These stores also have frequent sales for members-only on all kinds of name brand vitamins and supplements.  Most cities have one of these types of stores at the mall, so they are convenient to get to as well.

Tip #4:  If you have a favorite brand, check out their website on the internet.  They almost always have coupons and special offers that you can take advantage of online, or coupons that you can print off and use locally.  It might even be a good idea to get on their e-mail list.  That way you can be alerted when they are offering discounts.

Tip #5:  Do a search for “cheap vitamins” on the internet.  You will be able to find all of the discount vitamin warehouses that deliver cheaply priced name brand vitamins right to your door.  This is the best way to save money on vitamins and supplements, because some of these internet vitamin warehouses sell name brand vitamins for over half-off the regular price.  Shipping charges are also usually nominal as well.

Tip #6:  Buy your vitamins in bulk when you can.  If you are buying something like vitamin C for example, and your whole family takes it, you will save money if you buy the larger bottles of it.  The same is true of multivitamins.  You can also go with a friend who is buying the same supplements and split the larger bottle in half.

Tip #7:  Don’t buy synthetic vitamins and supplements when you can.  It is always better to buy vitamins that are derived from natural sources.  The whole point of buying vitamins is to get nutrients from a natural food source, as opposed to using a synthetic drug.  However, the difference between a lot of synthetic and naturally produced vitamins has yet to be determined.  In many studies, the difference between synthetic and real vitamins is negligible at best.

Saving money on vitamins and supplements isn’t hard if you pay attention and are always alert for deals.  While vitamins and supplements can be expensive, there isn’t any reason to pay more than necessary to stay healthy.

Article Written By J. Foley
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