Guinness May Help Prevent Hearing Loss According to New Research

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University may have just added another piece of scientific evidence to the old Guinness ad slogan “Guinness is good for you.” The researchers recently discovered a causal relationship between iron deficiency and hearing loss following a study involving more than 300,000 participants. Guinness is famously high in iron content and antioxidants relative to other beers — 0.3mg of iron per pint, in fact — so if you suffer from hearing loss or have a family history of it, you could do worse than down a pint of plain.

“An association exists between IDA [iron deficiency anemia] in adults and hearing loss,” study author Kathleen Schieffer said, according to the Irish Post. “The next steps are to better understand this correlation and whether promptly diagnosing and treating IDA may positively affect the overall health status of adults with hearing loss.”

According to the study, sensorineural hearing loss, which involves damage to the ear’s nerve pathways and cochlea, as well as conductive hearing loss, which is caused by damage to any of the three ear bones, were both caused by too little iron in the blood stream. Moreover, the study found that increased levels of iron arrested the progression of hearing loss.

But don’t get too excited. Adult men need 8.7mg of iron per day, while adult women need 14.8mg, amounts you just can’t responsibly get solely via Guinness. But for the more than 30 percent of the world’s population that suffers from anemia and is at greater risk of hearing loss, we think some might enjoy having a pint in addition to taking a supplement.

And if you’re going to drink the black stuff, we recommend doing it in official Guinness barware, which you can find right here from ShamrockGift.com. And for more Guinness merchandise, including clothing, gifts, and kitchenware, check out our entire Guinness collection here.