MICROBIOME | ORAL HEALTH

Can Your Mouth Bacteria Cause Hearing Loss?

“Your mouth microbiome might be threatening your hearing!” “What?”

Despite what you may have seen in childhood cartoons, your head is not hollow. We cannot shine a flashlight into one ear and out the other — and no matter how hard you take a drag on a cigarette, you won’t get smoke wafting out through your ears.

But there may be some connection between the bacteria in our mouth, and the health of our ears. And it comes down to our spit — and our oral hygiene habits.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you, my mouth is full.” Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash

Interestingly, there are two different theories about how oral bacteria may impact our hearing. They aren’t exclusionary — just because one is correct, the other may still also be true.

The first theory involves blood infections.

The second theory involves saliva in the air.

Let’s take a look!

“Such a bad infection, it made him deaf”

The first theory for the interplay between oral bacteria and hearing ability has an important intermediate step to recognize: widespread infection.

This theory puts forth that, when someone doesn’t have good oral hygiene, the bacteria can…