Hearing loss only effects the elderly?
FALSE
It has been shown that 30% of the population above the age of 65 suffer from hearing loss. But the problem strikes the population indiscriminately in other age brackets: it is frequent, for example, among young children.

You only have to listen to music at a high volume once to risk hearing loss?
TRUE
Both a short exposure to loud sounds (acute acoustic trauma) like music at very high volume (a rock concert, disco) and an extended exposure to less loud sounds (chronic acoustic trauma) can determine permanent hearing loss.

Good hearing depends on your genes?
TRUE
Research from the United States published in the “Journal of Gerontology: Medical Sciences” shows that in moderate hearing loss, 66% of patients show a precise genetic maps, which is shown only in the 55% of patients with severe hearing loss. Moreover, American researchers established that even a moderate hearing loss can, indirectly, bring to a cognitive decline. This happens because brain receives less sounding information and so some brain areas regress.

You can protect your hearing through your diet?
TRUE
According to a study by Michigan University, red wine can help to prevent the hearing loss that often accompanies old age. The benefit lies in the resveratrol present in the grapes, which slows the formation of the free radicals that are responsible for aging and for damage of the delicate hairs in the inner ear.

Chewing gum protects the ear?
TRUE
According to research carried out at the ORL Clinic in Utrecht (the Netherlands), the probability of developing otitis media is reduced by 40% in subjects who habitually chew gum. The reason appears to be that chewing increases salivation, the movement of facial muscles and swallowing, and activates the muscles that control the opening of the Eustachian Tube, the canal that guarantees a connection between the mouth and the middle ear. Further, when you chew gum you generally breathe through your nose, another useful factor in keeping your nose and mouth, and by extension your ears, healthy.

Hearing loss can never be recovered.
FALSE
Research in this field is yielding results that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. A pool of scientists (among which some of them are Italian, from Pisa and Ferrara) have shown that they can restore lost hearing functions by simply reactivating the stem cells of the inner ear � which are already present, but “sleeping” � through other cells of the same family. These kind of researches have been done only on animals and actually the opportunity to do experiments on human beings is very remote.