Tinnitus Linked to Insulin Resistance

There is a direct link between insulin resistance, diabetes, and tinnitus. Studies have shown that most people with tinnitus have one of these conditions and treating them with diet and exercise can result in a significant reduction in tinnitus symptoms.

https://www.tinnitusformula.com/library/how-insulin-resistance-and-diabetes-cause-tinnitus/

 

I do have pre-diabetes.

How many else here have it?

Does tinnitus get better when you get the blood sugar in control?

 

That's really interesting. The fact that they said 84-92 percent of people with tinnitus have insulin resistance. That's a bold statement. Guess there's one way to determine that for sure, and take a test.

 

Some researchers believe there's a separate category to consider, that being pre pre-diabetes. In other words, even seemingly minor blood sugar anomolies can cause significant health effects. Some researchers also believe various forms of dementia could be considered to be Type III diabetes.

Apparently, blood sugar levels are extremely important, and it would seem especially for those who suffer from tinnitus. Fortunately, there's many things--such as diet--that often help significantly in controlling blood sugar levels. Combining some kind of intermittent fasting with ketogenic principles seem to be especially helpful.

In THIS THREAD (lengthy), a man explains in detail why he thought the ketogenic diet might help his brain and his overall health, which is probably the same explanation for why it helped his tinnitus. I asked him for some details on his tinnitus, and he responded with the following reply:

I've had terrible tinnitus the entire 5 1/2 years of ME. The ME caused the tinnitus, I never had it before that. It was the worst the first two years (really loud and fairly constant, especially exploding when someone talked too loud near me or triggered by other noises), then as I moved into chronic phase it stabilized to daily periods of tinnitus with fluctuations.

Now the tinnitus is gone... seriously... completely gone within a few days (as well as a host of other symptoms). So for me and others who've done a 180 with a ketogenic diet it was the fact that my body's and brain's cells were totally malfunctioning. They were still trying to use glucose for energy from the carbs I was eating in a normal diet and a crucial part of the ME disease process is blocking it at the cellular level. Only by switching my body to fully use ketones did everything change... some of us are strong anecdotal proof of the disease process discovered by the metabolomics studies.​

 

The good news is you can prevent prediabetes from becoming type 2 through a change in diet and exercise.

Studies have shown a connection between hearing loss and diabetes. So no harm in trying to get your blood sugar levels under control, as it may well benefit your tinnitus.

https://www.healthyhearing.com/report/52910-Diabetes-and-hearing-loss

 

I wouldn't say 90% have insulin resistance but a good portion of the population in general can't metabolise carbohydrates properly (I'm one of them). I always get sick and inflamed when I eat carbs and end up with one disorder or another... Last time I did a month on carbs I got tinnitus. The time before Raynaud's syndrome...

 

Sorry if this is a dumb question, what is ME?

 

Hi @JRC1 -- Not a dumb question at all. It stands for Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (aka as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). I've posted on this board on some of the overlap between ME and Tinnitus. The link below will take you to a post where I explain a little more about some of this overlap. -- Many people with ME end up getting tinnitus, and I think there's a possibility people with tinnitus might be more susceptible to developing ME, since both conditions involve a brain that has become dysfunctional to a certain degree.

Three Supplements to Treat Severe Anxiety Symptoms

This post might also be of interest to you:

Poll: Do Flu Vaccines Cause Tinnitus?

 

OMG, are you an Anti-Vaxxer?

It's total nonsense. Vaccines are safe. Parents who don't vaccinate their kids should not be allowed to have kids.

 

If you read the post I linked to, you will see that vaccines can--and do--cause tinnitus, as well as other very serious (crippling) neurological diseases such as Myalgic Encaphalomylitis. I can't tell you how many times I've read someone's story of how they developed ME/CFS immediately after getting some kind of vaccination. Gardasil and Hep C vaccines appear to be among the worst, but flu vaccines and others can be just as bad.

Perhaps you should do a little more research before making a rather dubious claim that vaccines are safe. By whose standards? Certainly not mine, nor those whose lives have been been permanantly altered by vaccine "side effects". And not even by the federal law. You may want to do an online search on: "US Law regards vaccines as unavoidably unsafe." You'll discover there's a lot of disagreement on whether or not vaccines are safe. It seems to all come down to by whose standards. I've seen over and over that vaccines can and DO cripple (and kill) people. And it happens a lot more often than most people realize.

 

There's always a huge debate about vaccines but the immune system disease I have has a very clear link to tetanus vaccination. It's not the only rare disease with a vaccination link. But it's something even doctors don't like to talk about as they don't want the heat of large scale vaccination avoidance. But bad things do happen to the unlucky unfortunately. I don't like to get into the debate myself and I wont. But I also don't tolerate people saying vaccines are 100% safe 100% of the time because they just aren't and I don't like false stories from either side of that argument.

 

Thanks @foam for sharing your experience. I've heard the tetanus vaccination can be more than problematic for some people, and have decided I will never have one. Especially since there's some very effective ways to treat tetanus if one were to contract it. It seems as soon as you start messing around with "tweaking" the immune system with vaccinations, there's always a chance you can cause some very delicate immune system balances to get thrown off kilter. With some of these effects not even beoming noticeable for years. -- I don't like false stories either; unfortunately there's a LOT of true stories out there that should give every person pause when it comes to various kinds of vaccinations.

 

This is based on a single study.

Bold statement and also almost certainly not true. That webpage cites only two studies. Only one of them was specific to non-meniere's tinnitus, and only included people who already had insulin resistance. The second study only looked at patients with Meneire's and says

However, as far as I can tell there was no control group here, so without knowing about the cohort and matched controls... this seems like a pretty meaningless statement.

So, "84-92 percent of people with tinnitus have insulin resistance", where does this idea come from? As far as I can tell it comes from "tinnitusformula.com", a site run by Arches who are widely held to be a purveyor of snakeoil.

Nonsense, until more data to the contrary. Or, really, any data to the contrary.

 

I have only just heard of a possible correlation between having too much insulin in the blood and tinnitus.

If there is a link could this explain tinnitus fluctuations during the day? Dunno... A targeted diet change would be an easy way of finding out.

 

I got SSHL, tinnitus, with perfect sugar level, no insulin problem, and totally support @linearb's post above.

 

Hearing Loss, Dizziness, and Carbohydrate Metabolism

I mean it's possible if you have slight insulin resistance that hydrops could become an issue. Those pumps need a lot of energy and those types of cells do much better on glucose than fatty acids.

 

I have been in ketosis for months while having tinnitus. That should tell you everything you need to know.