Vegetable and Nut Food Groups are Inversely Associated with Hearing Loss- a Cross-sectional Study from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

24, 2020 ABSTRACT Objectives: A cross-sectional study was conducted to investigate the associations between food groups and hearing loss. Methods: Data of 1,312 individuals were used from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2013. Hearing loss was determined with a pure tone average (PTA) of greater than 25 dB in either ear. The PTA was measured as the average hearing threshold at speech frequencies of 0.5, 1, 2, and 4 kHz. The dietary intake was examined with a food frequency questionnaire with 112 food items. The food items were classified into 25 food groups. A weighted logistic regression was used to investigate the association. Results: Individuals in the highest tertile of vegetables and nuts food groups were less likely to have hearing loss than those in the lowest tertile [Odds Ratio (OR) = 0.58 (95% Confidence interval (CI) 0.38-0.91), P = 0.019; OR = 0.59 (95% CI 0.39-0.90), P = 0.020, respectively], after adjusting for confounding variables of age, sex, body mass index, drinking, smoking, diabetes, hypertension, and physical activity. Conclusions: In this cross-sectional study, we observed that high intake of vegetables and nuts food groups revealed significant inverse associations with hearing loss, after adjusting for confounding variables among