A retrospective cohort study conducted by the researchers of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, USA explains a significant association of gout with the higher risk of hearing loss during old age. In gout, higher uric acid levels in the blood may lead to changes in cochlea microvascular, leading to stiffness in Outer Hair Cells (OHC) stiff and disturbances in OHC electrical motility which ultimately causes hearing dysfunction. The patients chosen for the analysis were the US adults of age 65 years or older. The current hearing loss recognised via the existence of at least two claims approximately four weeks apart with an ICD, Ninth Revision, 389.xx, with no particular claim in the baseline 1-year investigation stage were considered as the outcomes of the study.

The 89 409, out of 1.71 million eligible people showed the hearing loss. The crude prevalence per 1000 person-years of hearing impairment among the gout people noticed were 16.9 as compared to 8.7 of people without gout. Patients with gout exhibited a significantly higher HR of incident hearing impairment with Cox regression analyses when adjusted for medical comorbidity, demographics and common cardiovascular and gout medicines (p<0.0001). Substituted continuous Charlson-Romano Index with categorical variable or all comorbidities and cardiovascular risk factors along with minimum depletion of HR finding were confirmed during the sensitivity analyses. This explains a significant association between hearing issues and gout. Further evaluation is required to determine the underlying mechanisms of this relationship.