If you hear a ringing in your ears, and if you eat food, you may or may not be persistently or bothersomely annoyed by this study. It is yet another document that explains to people that they should or should not drink coffee:
“Association of Dietary Factors with Presence and Severity of Tinnitus in a Middle-Aged UK Population,” Abby McCormack, Mark Edmondson-Jones, Duane Mellor, Piers Dawes, Kevin J. Munro, David R. Moore, Heather Fortnum, PLoS ONE 9(12), 2014, e114711. (Thanks to investigator Falk Fish for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, based in Nottingham and Manchester, UK and in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, report:
“Participants were asked questions specific to tinnitus (defined as noises such as ringing or buzzing in the head or ears)….
“PERSISTENT TINNITUS: Eating oily fish, or non-oily fish once a week or more, avoiding eggs, and drinking more cups of caffeinated coffee per day were associated with a lower odds ratio of reporting persistent tinnitus. Conversely greater consumption of fruit and vegetables per day, eating wholemeal/wholegrain or ‘other’ type of bread compared to white bread, and avoidance of dairy produce were associated with increased report of persistent tinnitus….
“BOTHERSOME TINNITUS: The only dietary association with reporting of bothersome persistent tinnitus was a reduction in prevalence when wholemeal/wholegrain bread was consumed rather than white or brown bread.”