Tuesday, May 04, 2010

Antioxidants for deafness

Oxygen free radicals is now the scapegoat for everything from diabetes to cancer; so why not deafness?

We've always relegated presbycusis to just another one of the many unavoidable stigma of ageing, inexplicable and irreversible. Ageing is the next frontier of medicine and free radicals are the sands of time in the storm of decay.

Sci Am reviews a fascinating recent animal study that demonstrated slowing of age-related deafness in rats by the administration of antioxidants. An elegant way of elucidating the mechanism of disease AND its treatment in a single experiment.

Unfortunately, the pharma industry will only seize this to sell us a plethora of antioxidants rather than have us relook at our toxic modern diets and lifestyles!

www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=preventing-hearing-loss