Protective effects of vitamins/antioxidants on occupational noise‐induced hearing loss: A systematic review
What this study found
Overall, vitamins and antioxidants showed a mixed but generally favorable signal for protection against occupational noise-induced hearing loss, with the clearest evidence for N-acetylcysteine and, in the review summary, vitamin B12 and folic acid. In individual trials, NAC reduced high-frequency temporary threshold shift from 2.8 dB with placebo to 2.5 dB after NAC (P=.03) and lowered standard threshold shift rates from 34.98% to 27.14% in a weapons-training study (P=.0288). Vitamin E, alpha-lipoic acid, and ginseng also showed protective effects in some studies, while other outcomes were…
- Study & population
- Systematic review of 12 articles with 13 active intervention arms, including eight clinical trials and two crossover studies.
- Intervention
- This systematic review evaluated oral vitamins and antioxidants used to prevent or delay occupational noise-induced hearing loss in noise-exposed workers and military personnel.
- Key limitation
- The evidence base was heterogeneous in supplement type, dose, exposure setting, and outcome measures, which prevented meta-analysis.
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Open PDFOriginal abstract
Occupational noise‐induced hearing loss (NIHL) due to industrial, military, and other job ‐related noise exposure can cause harmful health issues to occupied workers, but may also be potentially preventable. Vitamins/antioxidant have been studied as therapeutic strategies to prevent and/or delay the risks of human diseases as well as NIHL .So, this study was conducted to systematically review the protective effects of vitamins/antioxidants on occupational NIHL.