Good music is pleasureable. In fact, music is believed to have healing effects. However, expert  warn against listening to loud music because a prolonged exposure to loud noise is harmful to hearing, reports

Muda Oyeniran.

Charles (not real name) is an undergraduate in one of the Nigerian universities. As a lover of music, he enjoys his music loud and will always raise the volume of his sound system to the highest volume anytime he wants to listen to his favourite tunes.

After few months, he discovered that he had to strain his ears in order to hear his lecturers whenever he was in the lecture room; even his room mates would have to repeat themselves during conversations before Charles could understand them.

The problem worsened and Charles had to complain to his doctor who diagnosed that he was suffering from "partial deafness".

Charles is not alone in this condition as a recent national study conducted in the United States has shown that one in five teenagers had lost a little bit of hearing as a result of listening to loud music, adding that the problem had increased in recent years.

The study is based on data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey conducted by a branch of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings appeared in the recent edition of the American Medical Association.

The researchers analysed data on young people between the ages of 12 and 19 year from a nationwide health survey in nearly 3,000 kids tested between1988  and1994 to nearly 1,800 kids tested over 2005 and 2006 and the prevalence of hearing loss was found to have increased from about 15 per cent to 19.5 per cent translating to about 6.5 million teenagers.

Most of the hearing loss found was said to be "slight" defined as the inability to hear at 16 to 24 decibels(or sound such as a whispher or rustling leaves). A teenager with slight hearing loss might not be able to hear water dripping or his mother whispering "good night".

According to the senior author of the study, Dr Gary Curhan of Havard-affliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, those with slight hearing loss will hear all of the vowel sounds clearly, but might miss some of the consonant sounds such as t, k and s.

"Although speech will be detectable, it might not be fully intelligible. Our hope is that we can encourage people to be careful", Curhan said

The researchers found a significant increase in high-frequency loss, which they said may indicate that noise caused the problems and they cited a 2010 Australian study that linked use of personal listening devices with a 70 per cent increased risk of hearing loss in children

"I think the evidence is out there that prolonged exposure to loud noise is likely to be harmful to hearing, but that does not mean kids can't listen to MP3 players", Curhan added

"Today's young people are listening longer, more than twice as long as previous generations. The older technologies had limited battery life and limited music storage. Some young people turn their digital players up to levels that would exceed federal workplace limits", said Brian Fligor, an audiologist at Children's Hospital, Boston

In Fligor's own study of about 200 New York college students, more than half listened to music at 85 decibels or louder(as loud as a hair dryer or a vacuum cleaner). He found that habitual listening at those levels can turn microscopic hair cells in the inner ear into scar tissue. He also found that some people may be more predisposed to damage than the others

Some experts are now urging teenagers to turn down the volume of their digital music player, suggesting that loud music through the earbud may be to blame.

They warn that slight hearing loss can cause problems in school and set the stage for hearing aids in later life.

Continual exposure to loud music, according experts may result in hearing loss.

Depending on the decibel level, the amount of exposure prior to hearing damage varies. Music played at 90 decibels for an 8-hour period each day can cause damage, as can music played at 130 decibels for fewer than four minutes in a day. Music played at 140 decibels or higher is considered a "danger level." While minor damage caused by lower levels is reversible, major damage caused by extremely loud music may be permanent. The highest "safe" level is considered to be 85 decibels.

Continual exposure to loud music can also lead to tinnitus. It is predicted that exposure to loud music will cause as many as 50 million Americans to suffer hearing loss by 2050.

Commenting on the issue, Dr Bayo Onajole, Associate Professor of Public Health, Department of Public Health, Lagos University Teaching Hospital said loud music can be regarded as a form of noise pollution can lead to irritability adding that when one feels irritable, it could affect one's concentration leading to increase in the risk of road accidents.

"Also when one feels irritable, the blood pressure can go up and that means one can end up having stroke and other related problems as a result of elevated blood pressure.

Apart from this, persistent exposure to noise can lead to deafness and this is a major problem. A lot of people within the population are becoming partially deaf or having some degree of deafness to a varying extent.

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