Smoking, smoking cessation, and the risk of hearing loss: Japan epidemiology collaboration on occupational health study

Abstract

Introduction: We aimed to determine the prospective association of smoking status, smoking intensity, and smoking cessation with the risk of hearing loss in a large Japanese cohort. Methods: The cohort study included 50195 employees, who were aged 20-64 years and free of hearing loss at baseline. Participants were followed up for a maximum of 8 years. Pure-tone audiometric testing was performed annually to identify hearing loss at 1 and 4 kHz. Cox proportional hazards regression models were used to investigate the association between smoking and hearing loss. Results: During follow-up, 3532 individuals developed high-frequency hearing loss, and 1575 developed low-frequency hearing loss.The hazard ratio (HR) associated with current smokers was 1.6 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.5 to 1.7) and 1.2 (95% CI = 1.1 to 1.4) for high- and low-frequency hearing loss, respectively, as compared with never smokers.The risk of high- and low-frequency hearing loss increased with the number of cigarettes smoked per day (both p for trend