Alcohol makes people lose their breath

If in a bar, suddenly you don't hear what the other person is saying, it may not be because of the noise. British researchers found alcohol makes people temporarily deaf.

In a study of 30 healthy volunteers, researchers found that when participants drank alcohol or beer, their hearing ability became less accurate. In particular, hearing at low frequencies - essential to clearly distinguish words - is most affected.

It seems that alcohol increases the threshold of human suffering with loud sounds, the authors study, leading the oil by Tahwinder Upile at University Hospital London, said. However the disease called "deaf cocktail party" may not be the consequence of the noisy environment in the bar.

To understand the short-term effect of alcohol on hearing ability, the team recruited healthy adults, aged 20 to 40, who had no history of hearing problems. These people perform tests on hearing ability before and after drinking alcohol in the laboratory.

In general, the more volunteers drink, the worse the test is.

Hearing loss becomes more pronounced in the older group, as well as in those who have had a history of drinking alcohol. The team speculated that this effect was due to alcohol damaging auditory neurons, or affecting brain processing.

In the study, hearing loss was only temporary. A few weeks after surgery, the volunteers returned to normal hearing threshold. However, experts warn that drinking alcohol regularly changes your hearing ability over time.

T. An