Gout is associated with a higher risk of development of hearing loss in older adults, a recent study found. Researchers conducted a retrospective cohort study that included a 5% random sample of US Medicare claims 2006–2012, representative of US adults aged ≥65 years. Incident (new) hearing loss was identified by the presence of at least 2 claims at least 4 weeks apart with an International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, with no respective claim in the baseline 1-year observation period. They found:

• Among the 1.71 million eligible people, 89,409 developed incident hearing impairment.
• The crude incidence rates of incident hearing impairment in people with vs without gout were 16.9 vs 8.7 per 1,000 person-years.
• Using Cox regression analyses adjusted for demographics, medical comorbidity and common cardiovascular and gout medications, gout was found to be associated with a significantly higher hazard ratio (HR) of incident hearing impairment (HR=1.44).
• Findings were confirmed in sensitivity analyses that substituted continuous Charlson-Romano Index with categorical variable or all comorbidities and additionally cardiovascular risk factors, with minimal attenuation of HR.