Seafood intake may lower risk of persistent tinnitus in women

Women who regularly consume tuna fish, light-meat fish, or shellfish appear to have a decreased risk of developing persistent tinnitus, reports a study. In contrast, use of fish oil supplement is associated with a higher risk.

Overall, 73,482 females in the Nurses’ Health Study II from 1991 to 2021 were followed in this prospective cohort study. The authors assessed diet using a validated food frequency questionnaire every 4 years.

Independent associations between total seafood intake, specific types of fish, shellfish, fish oil supplements, and the risk of persistent tinnitus (defined as tinnitus experienced daily) were explored using multivariable-adjusted Cox proportional hazards.

Cases of incident persistent tinnitus reached a total of 9,362 after 1,998,421 person-years of follow-up. The risk of developing persistent tinnitus, however, appeared to decrease with seafood intake.

The adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) were 0.87 (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.78‒0.95) for 1 serving/week of seafood, 0.77 (95 percent CI, 0.68‒0.86) for 2‒4 servings/week, and 0.79 (95 percent CI, 0.64‒0.96) for 5+ servings/week (p_trend<0.0001) compared with no or rare intake.

When examined individually, higher intakes of tuna fish, light-meat fish, and shellfish resulted in a reduced risk.

The adjusted HRs were 0.84 (95 percent CI, 0.78‒0.90; p<0.0001) for 1+ servings/week of tuna fish, 0.91 (95 percent CI, 0.83‒0.99; p=0.04) for light-meat fish, and 0.82 (95 percent CI, 0.72‒0.93; p<0.0001) for shellfish compared with no or rare intake of the specific type of seafood.

On the other hand, an increased risk was observed for consumption of dark-meat fish (adjusted HR, 1.09, 95 percent CI, 0.99‒1.21; p=0.04). Likewise, fish oil supplement use correlated with a higher risk of persistent tinnitus (adjusted HR, 1.12, 95 percent CI, 1.06‒1.19).