You’ve likely heard that consuming too much salt can be bad for your heart, but what about your ears?
Frequently adding salt to meals has been associated with an increased risk of hearing loss, according to a new study.
Researchers in South Korea sampled 492,168 participants aged 40 to 69 with no hearing loss whose genetic, lifestyle and health data are held in the UK Biobank.
Participants self-reported how often they added salt to food and were tracked for “incident hearing loss” over several years. Frequency of salt addition was categorized as “never/rarely,” “sometimes,” “usually” or “always.”
Those who always added salt to food had a 23 percent higher risk of hearing loss compared to those who never or rarely did.
The link was strongest in younger adults, men and those without diabetes or hypertension. The association remained significant even after adjusting for overall diet quality.
Generally speaking, Americans consume too much sodium—on average more than 3,300 mg daily. The American Heart Association recommends no more than 2,300 mg a day and an optimal goal of no more than 1,500 mg a day for most adults.
“Hearing loss is a multifactorial sensory disorder influenced by genetic, environmental and behavioral factors,” the researchers wrote in their study.
While aging and noise exposure remain prominent contributors to hearing loss, they explained, preventable factors like drug use and health conditions including cardiovascular disease and diabetes are also known to contribute to auditory decline.
“Public health measures including newborn hearing screening, vaccinations, noise regulations and safer medication practices have helped reduce the prevalence of hearing loss,” the team added.
“Although progress has been made in hearing loss prevention, the role of specific dietary behaviors remains poorly understood.
Salt intake, a well-recognized determinant of cardiovascular and metabolic health, has been linked to hypertension, endothelial dysfunction and vascular impairment, all of which may contribute to the pathophysiology of hearing loss.”
Inflammatory markers like GlycA and CRP partially explained the association, suggesting that chronic low-grade inflammation may be a key biological mechanism linking salt intake to hearing damage, the researchers explained.
While higher salt intake was significantly associated with an increased risk of hearing loss in participants with normal hearing, showing a dose-dependent relationship, the associations were weaker in the insufficient hearing group.
“Although the interaction term between salt intake and baseline hearing ability was not significant, the stratified analysis suggests a stronger association between salt intake and hearing loss risk in individuals with normal hearing,” the authors wrote.
“Our findings suggest that salt intake may be a modifiable risk factor for hearing loss. Reducing discretionary salt use could help preserve auditory health, especially in younger adults,” said study author and biomedical researcher Youngji Han of Kyungpook National University Hospital.
Newsweek has reached out to the researchers for additional comment.
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Reference
Han, Y., Lee, K.-Y., Seo, I., & Jung, D. J. (2025). Association between frequency of adding salt to foods and risk of hearing loss: A population-based cohort study using UK Biobank data. The Journal of Nutrition, Health and Aging, 29(10). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jnha.2025.100663
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