Tinnitus Is Associated with a Higher Risk of Benign Brain Tumors: A Nationwide, Population-Based Secondary Cohort Study of Young and Middle-Aged Adults

The association between tinnitus and risk of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality: insight from the UK Biobank

BACKGROUND

The potential influence of tinnitus on cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality has yet to be explored. We aim to examine the correlations between tinnitus and the risk of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality.

METHODS

We conducted a prospective cohort study utilising data from the UK Biobank. The presence of tinnitus was evaluated through a questionnaire. The primary outcome was defined as a composition of cardiovascular events, including myocardial infarction (MI), stroke, and mortality from CVD, as well as all-cause mortality. Cox proportional hazard models were employed to examine the associations between tinnitus and both the primary outcome and its individual components. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to evaluate the robustness of the primary analysis.

RESULTS

A total of 140,146 participants were included in the study. The presence of tinnitus was found to be associated with a higher incident rate of the primary outcome (HR = 1.057, 95%CI: 1.017-1.099, p = 0.005), MI (HR = 1.139, 95%CI: 1.061-1.222, p < 0.001) and all-cause mortality (HR = 1.053, 95%CI: 1.003-1.105, p = 0.038) after adjusting for confounders. However, there was no significant association between tinnitus and stroke or mortality from CVD. Subgroup analysis revealed that the association between tinnitus and the primary outcome was significant in females, participants with abnormal BMI, and those without hearing difficulty, depression or anxiety. Sensitivity analyses yielded consistent results.

CONCLUSION

The findings from this study contribute to the existing body of evidence suggesting an association between tinnitus and an increased risk of cardiovascular events and all-cause mortality.

Association of periodic limb movements during sleep and tinnitus in humans

Both of periodic limb movements during sleep (PLMS) and tinnitus were related with dopaminergic system dysfunction. However, it was still unclear whether PLMS, one kind of sleep disturbances, was associated with chronic tinnitus or not. Thus, we aimed to investigate this issue in humans. Clinical and overnight polysomnographic data of 2849 adults from a community hospital during Nov. 2011 to Jun 2017 in Taiwan was collected retrospectively. The association of PLMS and chronic tinnitus was analyzed by Student’s t-test, Pearson’s Chi-Square test, and multivariate logistic regression. The results showed that the mean age was 50.6 years old (standard deviation, SD = 13.3, range = 18~91) for all subjects. There were 1886 subjects without tinnitus and 963 subjects with tinnitus in this study. The PLMS was not significantly different between subjects without tinnitus (mean = 1.0/h, SD = 3.5/h) and subjects with tinnitus mean = 1.1/h, SD = 3.4/h) by Student’s t-test. The severity of PLMS was not significantly between non-tinnitus and tinnitus subjects by Pearson’s Chi-Square test. Multivariate logistic regression also showed that PLMS was not significantly associated with tinnitus after adjusting age, sex, subjective hearing loss, Parkinson’s disease, and insomnia. In conclusion, PLMS was not associated with chronic tinnitus in humans.