"二手煙和聽力喪失有關連"

一份新的研究發現暴露在二手菸環境下的青少年有加倍的可能會聽力喪失。

一直以來大眾都知道長時間待在吸菸者身邊對你的健康有害。二手菸會增加心臟病和肺癌的風險，也會加重氣喘的症狀，導致耳朵感染，根據新的研究指出，它也跟聽力喪失有關。這份研究報告的結論之一就是：「吸菸單一因素在青少年身上多了幾乎兩倍聽力喪失的風險。」

紐約大學醫學院的研究人員測試1,500名12到19歲青少年的聽力，他們發現那些經常暴露在二手菸的青少年有較大的機率會發展出感覺神經性聽力損失。報告的作者之一邁克爾韋茨曼教授解釋，這些問題是「那種通常是在老人身上才會發生的聽力喪失，或是小孩天生就有的失聰」。

值得注意的是，抽菸相關的聽力問題似乎會影響青少年了解他人說話內容的能力。因此這可能會造成他們在課堂上分心，教師也相信這會讓學生學習中斷。該項研究的領導人拉汪尼教授說：「我們需要評估該怎麼處理在公眾場合和家裡吸菸的情形，還有多久一次、從什麼時候開始要為孩童作聽力篩檢。」

(Health) Passive Smoking Linked to Hearing Loss

A new study found that teenagers exposed to smoke are twice as likely to suffer hearing loss.

It has long been known that spending extended periods of time around smokers is bad for your health. Passive smoking increases the risk of heart disease and lung cancer, it intensifies the symptoms of asthma, causes ear infections, and according to a new study, it is also connected to hearing loss. One of the conclusions of the research paper was that tobacco smoke is independently associated with an almost two-fold increase in the risk of hearing loss among adolescents.

Researchers from the New York University School of Medicine tested the hearing of 1,500 12- to 19-year-olds, and they found that those teenagers regularly exposed to smoke had a greater chance of developing sensorineural hearing loss. Professor Michael Weitzman, one of the reports authors, explained that these problems are the type of hearing loss that usually tends to occur as one gets older, or among children born with congenital deafness.

Alarmingly, smoke-related hearing problems appear to affect a teenagers ability to properly understand what people are saying. In turn, this may cause them to become distracted in class, and teachers may believe that they disruptive students. The studys leader, Professor Anil Lalwani, said: We need to evaluate how we deal with smoking in public places and at home, as well as how often and when we screen children for hearing loss.

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