Where your DNA places you among other people, and the studies behind it.
Not tailored to your result, and not medical advice
Protect Your Hearing From Noise: Sounds at or below 70 A-weighted decibels are unlikely to cause hearing loss even after long exposure, while long or repeated exposure at or above 85 dBA can cause it. The damage falls on the hair cells of the inner ear, and unlike bird and amphibian hair cells, human hair cells do not grow back. It can build gradually from repeated exposure or arrive immediately and permanently from a one-time intense sound such as an explosion or gunshot, and NIDCD calls it the only type of hearing loss that is completely preventable. NIDCD advises wearing earplugs or other protective devices during loud activities and moving away from the noise when you cannot reduce it, since your distance from the source and the length of exposure matter alongside volume. NIDCD (NIH)
Keep Listening Volume Down: WHO reports that over 1 billion young adults are at risk of permanent, avoidable hearing loss due to unsafe listening practices. Its prevention list for adults includes safe listening strategies to reduce exposure to loud sounds in recreational settings, alongside occupational hearing conservation programs for noise and chemical exposure. WHO also backs a global standard for personal audio systems and devices through its Make Listening Safe initiative. Lower volumes and less time in loud environments both reduce the total dose your ears take. World Health Organization
Quit or Avoid Smoking: In 50,195 Japanese workers with normal hearing at baseline, followed for up to 8 years, current smokers had a hazard ratio of 1.6 (95% CI 1.5 to 1.7) for high-frequency hearing loss and 1.2 (95% CI 1.1 to 1.4) for low-frequency loss compared with never smokers. Risk rose with the number of cigarettes smoked per day, and former smokers sat much closer to never smokers, with a decline in risk visible even among those who had quit less than five years before baseline. This is observational and cannot prove cause, but the dose-response pattern and the drop after quitting point the same way. Nicotine & Tobacco Research (PubMed)
Take Blood Sugar Seriously: A 2025 systematic review of 17 studies found hearing loss markedly more common in people with type 2 diabetes than in controls (pooled odds ratio 4.19, 95% CI 1.22 to 14.37), and a diabetes duration of ten years or more carried further risk (OR 2.07, 95% CI 1.45 to 2.94). The proposed mechanism is microvascular: chronic high blood sugar damages the small vessels supplying the inner ear, with thickening of the basilar membrane and atrophy of the stria vascularis, and the reduction in sound perception was most pronounced at higher frequencies between 4000 and 8000 Hz. The authors report considerable heterogeneity between studies and note that cardiovascular comorbidities were not assessed and may act as confounders, so the true size of the effect is uncertain. The eating and activity patterns that support metabolic health are the practical lever here. Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (PMC)
Get Hearing Difficulty Checked: About one in three people in the US aged 65 to 74 has hearing loss, and nearly half of those older than 75 have difficulty hearing. NIDCD notes that new research suggests certain genes make some people more susceptible to hearing loss as they age, and that the condition involves changes in the inner ear and middle ear along with complex changes in the nerve pathways from the ear to the brain. Be clear-eyed about the limits: scientists do not yet know how to prevent age-related hearing loss, so avoiding loud noise, not smoking and staying metabolically healthy reduce the damage you add on top rather than stopping the underlying process. If a hearing problem makes the TV or radio hard to follow, leaves you frustrated in family conversations, or has you feeling left out in groups, NIDCD suggests seeking advice from a hearing health care provider. NIDCD (NIH)
How much of this is genetic?
Genetics explains 45% of why people differ in this trait. The rest is environment, daily habits and chance.
Heritability estimate: Twin-study estimates of age-related hearing loss heritability (~35-55%); Momi et al., Twin Research and Human Genetics (2015)
Background and further reading
Age-related hearing loss (presbycusis) is the gradual, typically bilateral decline in hearing that accompanies aging, usually beginning with the high frequencies and making speech harder to follow in noisy settings. It is one of the most common chronic conditions of later life: an estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide had some degree of hearing loss in 2019, and prevalence rises steeply after age 60. The underlying changes involve loss of sensory hair cells in the cochlea, degeneration of the stria vascularis, and decline of auditory nerve fibers. Hearing loss is usually painless and progressive, so it is often noticed first by family members before the affected person.
Genetic Basis: Twin and family studies estimate that roughly 35-55% of the variation in age-related hearing loss is heritable, with the remainder attributable to environmental and lifestyle exposures accumulated over a lifetime. Adult-onset hearing difficulty is highly polygenic: a large genome-wide association study in the UK Biobank identified dozens of independent loci for self-reported hearing difficulty, implicating genes active in the cochlea and inner-ear sensory cells, including EYA4, NID2, and LMX1A. Several of these, along with other well-established deafness genes such as KCNQ4 and ILDR1, cause rare Mendelian forms of hearing loss when severely disrupted, whereas the common variants captured by a polygenic score each nudge predisposition by only a small amount. A high score reflects the cumulative burden of these many common variants.
Environmental Factors: Much of the risk of age-related hearing loss is modifiable. Cumulative exposure to loud noise, from occupational settings, power tools, firearms, or personal audio at high volume, is a leading preventable cause and interacts with genetic susceptibility. Smoking, diabetes, and cardiovascular risk factors are associated with faster hearing decline, likely through effects on cochlear blood supply. Certain medications are ototoxic, including some aminoglycoside antibiotics, high-dose loop diuretics, and platinum-based chemotherapy agents. Protecting hearing with earplugs or muffs in loud environments, keeping listening volumes moderate, and managing cardiovascular health all support long-term auditory function.
The published research behind your score, and the variants it draws on.
6 published scores from 3 studies
The hearing loss score combines 6 polygenic scores drawn from 3 published studies.
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Content updated August 2026.
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