You may think that you won't have to deal with hearing loss for another 20, 30, or even 50 years. But maybe you've found yourself turning up the volume on The Bear more often, or leaning closer to friends at a noisy bar.
Or maybe you're like Ibrahim Dabo, now 41, who couldn't hear his lectures when he was in college, so he'd wait until class ended to copy notes from the whiteboard.
"I was embarrassed when I'd ask my friends, 'Can you repeat that?' two or three times", says Dabo. "I felt incompetent. I stayed away from social interaction. I stopped going to movies with friends, because I would be lost".
An estimated 15 percent of American adults-that's about 38 million peoplehave some level of hearing loss, according to the CDC. Research increasingly suggests that untreated hearing loss can lead to other significant health issues, including depression and Alzheimer's disease.
Hearing experts say that if trends continue, the number of hearing-impaired people will nearly double in the U. S. by 2060. Among 20-to 69-year-olds, men are almost twice as likely as women to have trouble hearing, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. That might be because men may have greater lifetime exposure to loud sounds (jackhammers, Kendrick Lamar concerts). And then there's what fills our ears all the time: The World Health Organization says 1 billion young adults are at risk of permanent, avoidable hearing loss due to unsafe listening practices, like top-volume clubs, concerts, and sound from their own earbuds.
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