A study has connected age-related hearing loss to a decrease in cholesterol.
According to a recent research, age-related hearing loss is linked to a decrease in cholesterol in the inner ear. Mara Eugenia Gomez-Casati of the University of Buenos Aires-CONICET’s Institute of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Mauricio Martin of the Institute of Medical Research Mercedes, and Martin Ferreyra of Argentina’s National University of Córdoba conducted the study.
Age-related hearing loss is caused by a decline in the ability of these cells to stretch in response to sound as we age.
Experiments published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology show that phytosterol supplements may replace lost cholesterol and protect mice against sensory impairment. Outer hair cells (OHCs), an inner ear sensory cell, prolong sound waves to enhance their loudness. Age-related hearing loss is caused by a decline in the ability of these cells to stretch in response to sound as we age. This stops sound from being amplified.
Researchers hypothesised that hearing loss may be linked to a decrease of cholesterol in OHCs since cholesterol is an important component of the stretch response and brain cholesterol has recently been shown to drop with age. This notion was tested on mice.
The researchers first examined the level of CYP46A1 in inner ear OHCs since this enzyme aids in the breakdown and recycling of cholesterol. They discovered more CYP46A1 in the inner ears of elderly mice than in younger animals, and hence less cholesterol.They then demonstrated cause and effect by creating hearing loss. Outer hair cells (OHCs), an inner ear sensory cell, prolong sound waves to enhance their loudness.
Age-related hearing loss is caused by a decline in the ability of these cells to stretch in response to sound as we age. This stops sound from being amplified.oss in young mice, as seen by aberrant inner ear cell output, by drug-overactivating CYP46A1. Finally, they looked at whether raising cholesterol in the brain may work against the medicine.
Because cholesterol cannot reach the brain through the blood, the researchers utilised phytosterols, which are plant-based cholesterol-like molecules. Young animals given both the CYP46A1 activator and 3 weeks of dietary phytosterols had better OHC function.
Because phytosterols are present in many over-the-counter products, they may be an easy solution to counteract age-related hearing loss. However, more definitive results will need to be drawn after directly examining their impacts on hearing loss in older mice models as well as in people.
“In the current work, we show that: 1) ageing causes cholesterol loss from sensory cells of the inner ear, 2) a widely used retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS patients reproduces the cholesterol loss observed in aged individuals and leads to impaired outer hair cell function, and 3) we discovered that these defects can be partially reversed by phytosterol supplementation,” the authors write. Our results are highly intriguing since they offer the first proof-of-principle supporting phytosterol supplementation as a prospective method for hearing loss prevention or therapy.”
This article was adapted from a wire service feed with no changes to the language. Only the title has been altered.
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According to a recent research, age-related hearing loss is linked to a decrease in cholesterol in the inner ear. Mara Eugenia Gomez-Casati of the University of Buenos Aires-CONICET’s Institute of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, Mauricio Martin of the Institute of Medical Research Mercedes, and Martin Ferreyra of Argentina’s National University of Córdoba conducted the study.
Age-related hearing loss is caused by a decline in the ability of these cells to stretch in response to sound as we age.
Experiments published in the open-access journal PLOS Biology show that phytosterol supplements may replace lost cholesterol and protect mice against sensory impairment. Outer hair cells (OHCs), an inner ear sensory cell, prolong sound waves to enhance their loudness. Age-related hearing loss is caused by a decline in the ability of these cells to stretch in response to sound as we age. This stops sound from being amplified.
Researchers hypothesised that hearing loss may be linked to a decrease of cholesterol in OHCs since cholesterol is an important component of the stretch response and brain cholesterol has recently been shown to drop with age. This notion was tested on mice.
The researchers first examined the level of CYP46A1 in inner ear OHCs since this enzyme aids in the breakdown and recycling of cholesterol. They discovered more CYP46A1 in the inner ears of elderly mice than in younger animals, and hence less cholesterol.They then demonstrated cause and effect by creating hearing loss. Outer hair cells (OHCs), an inner ear sensory cell, prolong sound waves to enhance their loudness.
Age-related hearing loss is caused by a decline in the ability of these cells to stretch in response to sound as we age. This stops sound from being amplified.oss in young mice, as seen by aberrant inner ear cell output, by drug-overactivating CYP46A1. Finally, they looked at whether raising cholesterol in the brain may work against the medicine.
Because cholesterol cannot reach the brain through the blood, the researchers utilised phytosterols, which are plant-based cholesterol-like molecules. Young animals given both the CYP46A1 activator and 3 weeks of dietary phytosterols had better OHC function.
Because phytosterols are present in many over-the-counter products, they may be an easy solution to counteract age-related hearing loss. However, more definitive results will need to be drawn after directly examining their impacts on hearing loss in older mice models as well as in people.
“In the current work, we show that: 1) ageing causes cholesterol loss from sensory cells of the inner ear, 2) a widely used retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS patients reproduces the cholesterol loss observed in aged individuals and leads to impaired outer hair cell function, and 3) we discovered that these defects can be partially reversed by phytosterol supplementation,” the authors write. Our results are highly intriguing since they offer the first proof-of-principle supporting phytosterol supplementation as a prospective method for hearing loss prevention or therapy.”
This article was adapted from a wire service feed with no changes to the language. Only the title has been altered.
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