Seafood intake, but not use of fish oil supplements, may help protect against the development of persistent tinnitus in females, a large study suggests.
American researchers found that regular seafood consumption, particularly tuna, light-meat fish and shellfish, was associated with lower risk of persistent tinnitus in females.
Light-meat fish is fish that is lean and milder in flavour such as cod, grouper, tilapia and halibut.
However, their study of more than 9,000 women with tinnitus followed for up to 30 years, found use of fish oil supplements was associated with higher risk of persistent tinnitus in females.
The researchers from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital Boston published findings in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition on 28 September 2024.
They said diet had been implicated in tinnitus aetiology but studies were inconsistent and longitudinal data scarce. While seafood intake was associated with lower risk of hearing loss, the longitudinal association with tinnitus was unknown, they added.
One cross-sectional study in the UK Biobank had found modestly lower odds of prevalent persistent tinnitus among participants who reported eating “non-oily” or “oily” fish, but no associations were observed for bothersome tinnitus or transient tinnitus.
Their prospective cohort study followed 73,482 females in the Nurses’ Health Study II (NHSII) from 1991 to 2021. Diet was assessed using a validated food frequency questionnaire every four years.
After 1.9 million person-years of follow-up, 9,362 cases of incident persistent tinnitus were reported. Seafood intake was independently associated with lower risk of developing persistent tinnitus.
Examined individually, higher intakes of tuna fish, light-meat fish and shellfish were associated with lower risk but fish oil supplement use was associated with higher risk. (MVHR: 1.12 (1.06,1.19)).
“In this large prospective study of >73,000 females, we observed a lower risk of developing incident persistent tinnitus among participants who consumed seafood regularly,” they concluded.
“Notably, we found a linear, direct association between the number of servings of total seafood consumed per week and the risk of incident tinnitus. However, the magnitude of the association depended on frequency and type of seafood consumed.”
The study is part of the Conservation of Hearing Study (CHEARS) which investigates risk factors for auditory disorders, including hearing loss and tinnitus, among participants in several large ongoing prospective cohort studies including the NHSII.
