Say What?

Take off the headphones, or turn the volume down. One in four college students show some level of hearing loss.
Think you don’t need to turn down your headset because your hearing is perfect? A small study found that 25 percent of college kids had some degree of damage — even though they thought their hearing was fine. Seven percent of those tested in the study had enough damage to be diagnosed with mild hearing loss.
According to the researchers, you would expect people of that age to have normal hearing ability. Though they did not assess the reasons for students’ impaired hearing, researchers speculate it has to do with the prevalence of portable music players.
Hearing damage cannot be undone, so protect your ears now to prevent hearing loss and possibly even dementia later. Research published in the Archives of Neurology found that older adults with hearing loss are significantly more likely to develop dementia than people with good hearing.