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. 2024 Aug 16:11:1458484.
doi: 10.3389/fnut.2024.1458484. eCollection 2024.

Inflammatory diet, gut microbiota and sensorineural hearing loss: a cross-sectional and Mendelian randomization study

Yixuan Wang  1 , Jiayi Nie  2 , Kaige Yan  3 , Jing Wang  1 , Xin Wang  1 , Yuxiang Zhao  1
Affiliations

Inflammatory diet, gut microbiota and sensorineural hearing loss: a cross-sectional and Mendelian randomization study

Yixuan Wang et al. Front Nutr. .

Abstract

Aims: Inflammatory diets can trigger chronic inflammation and affect gut microbiota. However, the relationship between dietary preferences and sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) remains unclear. This study aims to elucidate the relationship between different dietary preferences and sensorineural deafness.

Methods: The Dietary Inflammation Index (DII) and SNHL were defined by data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), and exploring their relationship. Using Mendelian randomization (MR) to analyze the relationship between 34 dietary preferences, 211 gut microbiota, and SNHL.

Results: Smooth curve fitting indicated that the risk of SNHL increased with increasing DII score when the DII score was greater than 5.15. MR results suggest that a diet including both oily and non-oily fish can substantially reduce the risk of SNHL. Additionally, six specific gut microbiota were found to have significant causal relationship with SNHL.

Conclusion: An inflammatory diet may increase the risk of developing SNHL. The observed relationship between fish consumption, gut microbiota, and SNHL suggests the existence of a gut-inner ear axis.

Keywords: Mendelian randomization; NHANES; gut microbiota; inflammatory diet; sensorineural hearing loss.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of study participants.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Demonstration of the gut-inner ear axis. Created with BioRender.com.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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Grants and funding

The author(s) declare that financial support was received for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 82203114), the Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi Province (2024SF-YBXM-342), Shaanxi Provincial Association for Science and Technology Young Talents Promotion Program (20240342), and the Technology Incubation Fund and Talent Program Projects of Shaanxi Provincial People’s Hospital (2023JY-02).

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