Nearly 15% of Adults Worldwide Experience Tinnitus Symptoms – WebMD

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Aug. 22, 2022 — More than 740 million adults worldwide have had at least one symptom of tinnitus, and about 120 million are severely affected, according to a new report.
Tinnitus indicates the perception of a ringing, buzzing, whistling, rustling, or hissing noise in the ears or head when no corresponding external sounds are present. In its most severe form, which is associated with hearing loss, tinnitus can affect a patient’s mental, emotional, and social health.
Researchers have lacked a clear indicator of how widespread the disorder is globally, as well as of who suffers the most serious symptoms.
“Our estimates indicate that, worldwide, 1 in 7 adults reported experiencing tinnitus,” says Carlotta Micaela Jarach, study author and an epidemiologist at the Mario Negri Pharmacological Research Institute in Milan, Italy.
“Severe tinnitus has been found in about 2% of the population,” she says.
The study was published in JAMA Neurology on August 8.
Association With Age
Jarach and colleagues from several European universities conducted a wide-ranging review of past international research to estimate the global prevalence and incidence of tinnitus, severe tinnitus, chronic tinnitus, and diagnosed tinnitus.
They looked at research published in 767 publications, then focused on prevalence and incidence estimates from 95 of the studies.
Pooling the data from all those studies, the research team calculated that the prevalence estimate of any tinnitus among adults was 14.4%; The prevalence did not differ significantly by sex; it was about 14.1% among men and 13.1% among women.
But the prevalence differed by age, with an estimate of about 13.6% among children and teensAmong adults, the prevalence increased with age, starting around 9.7% for ages 18 to 44 years and rising to 13.7% among ages 45 to 64 years, and 23.6% among ages 65 years and older.
The prevalence in adults appeared to differ significantly by continent, ranging from 5.2% in Africa to about 14% in Europe and North America and 21.9% in South America.
The prevalence of severe tinnitus among adults was 2.3%, and 2.7% for children and teens.
Again there was only a small difference between men and women, with 2.3% of men reporting severe tinnitus, and 2.7% ofwomen.
The prevalence of chronic tinnitus was 9.8%, and diagnosed tinnitus was 3.4%.
A Common Disability
Converting prevalence to numbers, the researchers found that 749 million adults worldwide have tinnitus symptoms, and about 120 million adults have severe symptoms.
“Major health organizations, including the World Health Organization and the Global Burden of Disease, should give due weight to this disability, which appears to be present on par with other disabilities such as migraine, back pain, and hearing loss,” says researcher Silvano Gallus, PhD, head of the Laboratory of Lifestyle Epidemiology at the Mario Negri Institute.
“We hope these results will help raise awareness of the problem so that research on effective treatments for tinnitus can be accelerated,” he says.
No Approved Treatments
Tinnitus is considered a symptom of an underlying neurologic condition. To date, there are no approved drugs to treat tinnitus, though some therapies help people to live with the symptoms.
“Tinnitus is a life-changing experience for many. Learning effective management strategies in a timely fashion is the key to dealing with this difficult condition,” says Hashir Aazh, PhD, an audiologist who specializes in tinnitus and serves as a consultant for the audiology department with the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust in the United Kingdom.
Aazh, who wasn’t involved with this study, noted that the research team included a group of well-respected tinnitus researchers from several European countries.
The systematic nature of the review minimized the risk of bias, he added, which should help clinicians, researchers, policymakers, and healthcare organizations to trust the data.
The findings line up with previous studies, Aazh said, which indicate that about 14% of the worldwide population experiences tinnitus at some point in life, and about 2% faces severe symptoms.
“It is important to understand how prevalent tinnitus is, because it can help healthcare organizations to secure resources and plan for developing diagnostic and therapy services that can support patients who are experiencing tinnitus,” he said.
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