Ditch that hearing aid!

– Dr. Jonathan Wright

 

Q: I’m getting older, and I feel like I’m constantly asking my kids to repeat themselves. I’m afraid my hearing is going–is there anything at all that I can do?

 

Dr: Wright: Dennis Trune, Ph.D., of Oregon Health Sciences University, pioneered research showing that the naturally occurring adrenal steroid hormone aldosterone can often reverse hearing loss in animals.

 

Based on Dr. Trune’s work, I’ve had aldosterone levels tested in many individuals with hearing loss (most of them “older”), and a significant number turned out to have low or “low normal” measurements. But after taking bio-identical aldosterone in “physiologic” quantities–amounts that would normally be present in adult human bodies–more than half of these individuals have regained a significant proportion of their “lost” hearing.

 

I’ve been surprised by two aspects of bio-identical aldosterone treatment for hearing loss. First, when it works, it works relatively rapidly, restoring a significant degree of hearing within the first two months. In fact, a few of the people I’ve worked with have literally heard improvement within just two to three weeks.

 

The other thing that surprised me about aldosterone therapy is that it’s capable of restoring a significant degree of hearing even years after the hearing loss initially occurred. So far, the longest interval I’ve witnessed was in an 87-year-old man who’d lost his hearing 13 years prior to regaining a significant degree of it using aldosterone.

 

None of the people I’ve worked with have had any adverse effects from aldosterone therapy, likely because the use of bio-identical, physiologic-dose aldosterone restores levels to those that would be found in the body anyway.

 

I’ve focused this treatment on individuals with hearing loss and low or low-normal aldosterone levels, but I do know of one individual–an M.D.–who decided to try this approach for his hearing loss even though his aldosterone levels were quite normal. His hearing did improve, but unless you too are an M.D., D.O., or N.D. who can prescribe bio-identical aldosterone and order lab tests for sodium and potassium (sodium and potassium regulation are two of aldosterone’s major responsibilities), please don’t take aldosterone, bio-identical or not, if your measured levels are perfectly normal!

From Health Info Newsletter November 26, 2012:: Zinc for Colds, IBS, Avocados, Hearing Loss