Can sugar cause ringing in the ears? What is the connection between sugar and Tinnitus? Will avoiding sugar relieve or maybe even cure you of Tinnitus? Let’s investigate.
How does Sugar Cause or Make Tinnitus Worse?
If you have Tinnitus already, sugar can make it worse. If you don’t have Tinnitus, excess sugar, especially over long periods of time, can cause an onset of Tinnitus.
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But, how does sugar worsen or cause Tinnitus?
It happens because of two reasons.
First, sugar increases your blood pressure. This then affects how much oxygen is carried to your ears. Oxygen supplied through blood is the only source of fuel for your ears.
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Secondly, sugar causes excess insulin production. Learn more about how sugar affects insulin production. This increased insulin production causes nerve damage that can also cause Tinnitus, or make it worse.
Sugar can increase blood pressure that worsens Tinnitus
Your brain is the largest consumer of energy when it comes to the organs in your body. When you consume sugar, your sympathetic nervous system is activated. Your brain essentially goes into overdrive and wants more blood and oxygen in its activated state. Your heart proceeds to go into overdrive as well, pumping that extra blood and oxygen the brain needs. This increases your blood pressure. Increased blood pressure then disrupts the pressure of blood supply and the amount of oxygen available to the cochlea in your ear canal. This can in turn cause a condition like Tinnitus or make the ringing louder. Just because your brain needs more blood doesn’t mean your ears do too.
Sugar also increases blood pressure in a couple of other ways as well. It decreases the number of receptors your body has to control blood pressure. What that means is that safety mechanisms meant to keep your blood pressure in check are temporarily lowered.
Lastly, excess sugar also causes your cells to empty out ATP or reserve energy. This then leads to a series of complex changes that ultimately result in a constriction of blood vessels. What does that cause? You guessed it. Increase in blood pressure.
Sugar can cause Hyperinsulinemia that can cause of worsen Tinnitus
Hyperinsulinemia basically means that your body has too much insulin, especially after you consume a lot of sugar or refined sugar products.
Your body’s pancreas produce insulin naturally. It is essential to process sugar. Sugar gives your cells the glucose they need. Insulin acts as the gatekeeper that signals your cells to open their membranes, to allow glucose to be absorbed.
But, when there’s too much insulin in the body, your cells begin to ignore insulin as a gatekeeper asking them to open up. This basically increases the amount of insulin who do nothing. Complicating matters is the fact that your pancreas don’t know why sugar levels aren’t going down. So, they increase insulin production even more.
All this extra insulin puts your body in a hyperglycemic state, because sugar is not being processed.
This then causes cochleovestibular (inner ear) disorders in three ways;
- Neuropathy (nerve damage or inflammation) of the eighth cranial pair (The pair of nerves responsible for vertigo, hearing loss and causing Tinnitus)
- Vasculopathy (disease of blood vessels) of the smaller vessels in your body (like the capillaries to your ears)
- Changes to the Potassium Sodium levels that affect the fluid constitution in your inner ear that is responsible for sound processing
You can read a very detailed report on how Hyperinsulinemia and sugar are connected in this report here.
Hyperinsulinemia, if not addressed, can also lead to Meniere’s disease where your inner ear fluid is changed, causing vertigo and hearing loss and in many cases, also Tinnitus or ringing in the ears.
A Brazilian study found that 84 to 92% of Tinnitus sufferers also had Hyperinsulinemia. Hyperinsulinemia is often also a precursor to one becoming Type II diabetic.
Will controlling my sugar intake stop or reduce my Tinnitus?
It can certainly help. The Brazilian study we talked about earlier also made Hyperinsulinemia patients follow a strict diet meant for diabetes. For two months, subjects ate every three hours, avoided foods high in refined, processed and simple sugars, drank a lot of water and ate a generally healthy diet. An overwhelming 76% of those subjects reported either an improvement or even a complete resolution of their Tinnitus conditions. Also, read about the connection between Tinnitus and diabetes here.
Are sugar substitutes the answer?
If you take the right sugar substitute, yes.
Stevia and Xylitol are safe sugar substitutes.
Aspartame, Sucralose and Saccharin based sugar substitutes are unsafe.
Sugar substitutes that use Aspartame (Equal, Nutrasweet, Indulge etc) can make your Tinnitus worse. Why? Because they are known to be excitatory neurotransmitters. What does that mean? They basically excite neurons. Even worse, they specially excite and elevate electrical activity in your brain’s auditory cortex, responsible for sound processing.
Aspartame also blocks the production of alkaline phosphatase, a natural compound that is supposed to be an appetite suppressant. In other words, this sugar substitute might be causing you to eat more.
Sucralose substitutes contain chlorine which is basically a poison, though in an inactivated state. Saccharin substitutes when consumed chronically can be carcinogenic in nature.
Cutting Back on Sugar – Tinnitus Relief and More!
Reducing sugar can give you not just relief from a case of ringing in the ears. It provides a host of other benefits too. Stable moods, better digestion, weight loss, better teeth, clearer skin, better long term mental health and improved heart health are all benefits you can enjoy.
And, remember that sugar isn’t just sugar in its sugar form. Simple carbohydrates like rice, pasta and pizza all contain high amounts of sugar.
Also, processed foods contain a high amount of sugar in the form of not so obvious ingredients like high-fructose corn syrup, maltose, dextrose etc. Anything that is high in carbs probably has more sugar than you should be consuming!
Now that you know sugar can cause Tinnitus, you must also look at the connection between alcohol and Tinnitus! Cutting back on your drinking can give you more relief from ringing in the ears.
This article on 10 triggers that make your Tinnitus worse might also be of interest to you, to help keep your Tinnitus in check.
