Severance Hospital's research team said Monday that the risk of developing presbycusis, or age-related hearing loss, increases by nearly twice in diabetic patients who continue to smoke cigarettes.

The research team, led by Otorhinolaryngology Professors Jung Jin-sei and Bae Seong-hoon, stressed that quitting smoking reduced the presbycusis risk for diabetic patients even if they had smoked in the past.

Researchers used the national health survey on 33,552 peoples conducted between 2010 and 2013 and analyzed the results with propensity score matching (PMS) to find how sex, occupational noise, smoking, hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, cerebrovascular and cardiovascular diseases, and obesity affects in developing presbycusis.

The study results also showed that people exposed to occupational noises showed 1.78 times higher risk of having age-related hearing loss, and those with high blood pressure were 1.16 times more likely to develop the disorder.

The researchers also confirmed that people with hypertension and diabetes had a 1.39 times more chance to suffer hearing loss problems. They explained that age-related hearing loss is one of the most common health conditions affecting older adults as one in every three people over age 65 in the world have some hearing loss.

Recent studies have found that senile deafness can work as a risk factor of declined cognitive function, dementia, depression, and even falls. The study results also revealed that hypertension, diabetes, smoking, and obesity are linked to hearing loss.

"Our study implies that diabetic patients could reduce the risk of having age-related hearing loss once they quit smoking," Professor Jung said. "Korea has introduced various systems to prevent noise-induced hearing loss but lacked studies on how diabetes and smoking could affect presbycusis. We expect the recent study results to bring positive effect in preventing the hearing problem."

Jung added that preventing hearing loss would emerge as a significant social issue as the social cost for treating presbycusis increases due to the aging society.

The study results were published in the international journal Scientific Reports.