Why good hearing is a lot like a good diet.
Interesting opening statement, but please allow me to explain…
One of my regular patients, a nutritionist, had been in to see me on an aftercare visit – you know, the regular service they get at least twice per year to make sure their hearing aids are still working to their best possible level.
Well, he and I were having a discussion about food and its nutritional content, but what really struck me was how well it paralleled to the world of hearing.
He opened up about this culture that we have fallen into of eating food on the go.
Chomping things down as quickly as we can without much regard for what the food contains. Of course, the food must contain some form of energy (otherwise it wouldn’t be food). However, what we really need to start considering so that our health does not fall into disrepair is the energy vs nutrient intake ratio.
Please bare in mind, this discussion went pretty DEEP into nutrition and culture – but, I’m summarising the most valuable aspects that you can use.
Energy Vs Nutrient Intake Ratio
Now, the energy vs nutrient intake ratio may sound complex, but in fact it is really simple. If you think about all of the things you’ve eaten in a day and add up its energy content – low and behold, you have your total energy intake.
Next, is slightly more difficult, but nonetheless still entirely possible to attain figure of your nutrient intake from these foods. Nowadays, it is a lot simpler to get a hold of these statistics since the invention of google and the nutritional information on almost every food packet. After you have all of these, you add them up and there you have your nutrient intake.
You can create a percentage figure from the two (nutrient intake divided by energy intake X 100) and you’ll have your energy vs nutrient intake ratio.
What you need will vary depending upon your sex, weight, height and many other factors, but the main thing is you can get a crude idea of whether your overall diet is healthy or not.
I can hear you saying right now:
“What could this possibly have to do with hearing?”
Just like with your eating habits, you can also monitor the quality of your hearing.
To put this into context, if you are having a conversation with a friend – then what is the percentage of words that you hear versus the number that you understand with clarity. And, just like our crude food monitor we talked about earlier, our loud vs clear metric also does a great job of giving you a better understanding of your hearing health.
Although we have been doing this form of consultation for a long time, we have found some particular screening techniques to be much more accurate in giving you the information you need to understand better and therefore, make a better decision.
This way, we don’t just give you not just louder sounds, but a more plentiful and clear sound quality that you can enjoy.
Interesting isn’t it?
