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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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| A twin-study of genetic contributions to hearing acuity in late middle age | | Author(s) | Arthur Wingfield, Mathew Panizzon, Michael D Grant |
| Journal title | Journals of Gerontology: Series A, Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, vol 62A, no 11, November 2007 |
| Pages | pp 1294-1299 |
| Source | http://www.geron.org |
| Keywords | Hearing Impairment ; Twins ; Ageing process ; Middle aged ; United States of America. |
| Annotation | Declines in hearing acuity, especially in the high frequency range, often appear in middle age. This study's aim is to characterise genetic and environmental influences that may underlie this pattern. 179 monozygotic and 150 dizygotic twin pairs aged 52-60 were selected from the Vietnam Era Twin Registry and individually tested for hearing acuity in the frequency range from 500 to 8000 Hz. Biometric modelling was used to quantify genetic and environmental influences. For individuals' better ears, approximately two-thirds of the variance in hearing acuity in middle and high frequency ranges could be accounted for by genetic factors. For individuals' poorer ears, which would be expected to show lower heritability, approximately one half of the variance in the middle and high frequency ranges could be accounted for by genetic influences. Within a given frequency range, the same genetic factors influenced both the better and poorer ears. In contrast, although there was some overlap of genetic influences on the middle and high frequencies within a given ear, there were also some genetic influences that were specific to each frequency. Results suggest that genetic effects play an important role in the level of hearing loss that often appears in late middle age; and factors such as noise exposure and medications with ototoxic properties should be noted in identifying those most vulnerable to such environmental risk factors. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-080305209 A |
| Classmark | BV: SVR: BG: SE: 7T |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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