Does your Tinnitus kick in or flare up right after you eat? Why does this happen? Could it be because of what you just ate? What are some common food culprits that make ringing in the ears worse? Let’s explore.
The Connection Between What You Eat and Your Tinnitus
You must have heard the phrase ‘You are what you eat’. This cliché but remarkably profound statement makes all the more sense when you have a condition like Tinnitus.
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Digestion is a process where nutrients in your food are broken down, extracted, distributed, used up and then expelled from your body. Your ears, particularly your middle ear, relies on a stable supply of blood and glucose to function well. Food you eat can dramatically alter both your blood pressure and your blood glucose levels.
While a complete list of foods that can positively or adversely affect your Tinnitus is probably very long or even maybe unresearched, you can begin with the usual suspects below. Here’s a more in-depth article we wrote about foods that trigger Tinnitus. And, diet and Tinnitus is not just about avoiding bad foods. It’s also about eating the right Tinnitus foods that can give you the vitamins and minerals you need to maintain good hearing health.
Are You Eating The Following Foods? It Could Explain Your Tinnitus!
Salt or High Sodium Foods
Do you like your food to be a little salty? While salty food can be delicious and full of flavor, it wreaks havoc on your blood pressure. It constricts blood vessels and cause blood pressure to rise. Your ears suffer because the pressure in the narrow tubes that lead into them is too high. A malfunctioning of the ears begin and you start to hear a ringing that either goes off or gets louder.
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Over a long period of time, salt can also weaken your heart muscle as it is always overworked after your salty meals, trying to push blood through constricted blood vessels. Processed foods, fast foods, most restaurant meals and canned soups and sauces usually have very high levels of salt. Even a cup of ice cream has large amounts of salt, almost 100 mg, as it makes the ice cream creamier and tastier.
Cut back on the salt and see if Tinnitus stays away after your meals.
Sugars
There’s only so much sugar that your body can usefully use. Consume more than what you need and your body gets into a state called hyperinsulinemia. It is estimated that 85% of people who have Tinnitus also suffer from hyperinsulinemia. Insulin is essentially a key to a lock that allows your cells to open up their membranes, to absorb sugar. But, when there’s too much sugar, your cells don’t open up and insulin begins to accumulate. What makes this worse is that insulin secretion continues unabated as your body doesn’t understand why all that sugar isn’t being absorbed. While all this is happening, sugar levels in your blood spike.
Remember what we told you about your ears needing glucose to function? Well, too much of it isn’t good either.
Sugar isn’t always in sugar form. A pizza is sugary too, because it contains an incredible amount of carbohydrates. Sugar is such a common Tinnitus causing food that we wrote a post dedicated to sugar and Tinnitus.
Unhealthy Fats
There are good fats and bad fats. You might also know them as good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Good cholesterol finds all the bad cholesterol and brings it to the liver for disposal. But, when you consume a meal from a fast food or pizza place, you are ingesting a whole lot of bad cholesterol and little or even no good cholesterol. Over time, your blood vessels begin to narrow, causing your heart to work hard and raise blood pressure. Blood pressure then, you guessed it, affects your Tinnitus.
Artificial Sweeteners
Aspartame type sweeteners like Equal or Nutrasweet might actually be worse than sugar. If you finish off your meals with a coffee loaded with Equal to get it to taste like the real deal, it could be this last addition that is bringing on your Tinnitus after meals.
Artificial sweeteners excite your nervous system. The last thing you want when you suffer with Tinnitus is an overstimulation of your nervous system. There has also been some research that suggests that artificial sweetener’s decrease your body’s appetite to know when you are full, by disabling the production of appetite suppressing hormones.
Tea, Coffee or Energy Drinks
Having a coffee or tea to wash down breakfast or brunch or an evening snack is very common practice. Caffeine increases blood pressure by causing blood vessels to constrict. Adrenaline production is also amped up a little.
Avoid or cut back on caffeinated beverages or caffeine rich foods like dark chocolate to see if your Tinnitus will stay away after your meals and snacks. It is especially wise to cut out all caffeine about early evening time, to help your body wean off it before you go to bed at night.
Flavor Enhancers like Seasoning Salts/ Mixes / MSG
Even a little MSG or seasoning salts can make most foods and snacks taste amazing. But, they could be very bad for your Tinnitus as they excite your nervous system. Foods rich in MSG and other flavor enhancers are usually ready to consume or very easy to prepare, like Cup ‘O Noodles. They are also usually very high in salt and sugars, making it a triple whammy for your Tinnitus.
Alcohol
Alcohol and food or snacks often go hand in hand, quite literally! When alcohol gets into your blood stream, it can reach your ears. There, it can actually change the composition of your inner ear fluid. Ever wondered why you have the spins after drinking heavily. It’s because your inner ear, responsible for balance, is disoriented and out of whack. Your sense of balance returns only when the blood alcohol level drops to normal or absent levels.
Foods that affect thyroid function
Do you have a thyroid condition. Being both hyper or hypo thyroid can mean that your Tinnitus is particularly sensitive to what you eat. Go through this post about thyroid function and Tinnitus to learn more about this topic.
Pills You Pop with your Meals
After meals are when you usually take medication prescribed to you. But, did you know that there’s a long list of medicines that can make Tinnitus worse? That list includes commonly taken medicines like aspirin, most NSAID’s or steroids like Prednisone. Even your antidepressant is probably causing your Tinnitus to flare up. In such cases, it may not be what you eat but rather the pill you pop in with your meals that is making your Tinnitus worse.
