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JANUARY 19, 2024
AIKEN-AUGUSTA’S MOST SALUBRIOUS NEWSPAPER • FOUNDED IN 2006
NOWHEARTHIS In case you haven’t heard, research published last week has shown a clear and beneficial link between hearing aid use and mortality. The study is significant because hearing loss isn’t exactly rare: it affects approximately 40 million adults in the U.S. But only about 1 in 10 people who need hearing aids use them. Hearing loss is far more than simply the inability to hear sounds. Research has shown that untreated hearing loss can and does result in depression, social isolation, and dementia. For those reasons and others, hearing loss is conclusively linked with reduced life spans. But here is the surprising good news from the University of Southern California study published this month in The Lancet Healthy Longevity: Adults with hearing loss who regularly used hearing aids had a 24% lower risk of death over the years of the study than those who never wore them. The health benefit for people who never wear hearing aids and those who use them only occasionally was the same: it was non-existent. The research has been called the most comprehensive analysis ever undertaken examining the benefits of regular hearing aid use, encompassing nearly 10,000 study participants over a period of more than two decades. Its message is clear, so listen up: if you have hearing loss, get a hearing aid and use it regularly. +
AUGUSTARX.COM
WATERPROOF If it’s proof you want that bottled water isn’t a smart buy, there was no shortage of information before last week. But the latest news is perhaps the biggest smoking gun yet: a typical bottle of store-bought water, just a single liter, contains about a quarter of a million detectable plastic fragments according to researchers at Columbia and Rutgers Universities. For comparison, a 2018 study found an average of 325 pieces of microplastics per liter of bottled water. At the time, that number was considered alarming. Multiply that figure by about 75,000 to reach the new average. Considering the microscopic size of tiny plastic particles, it’s no surprise that they are turning up everywhere, including in people’s lungs and bloodstream, human placentas, oceans, rivers and lakes, and our drinking water, even when we pay a premium for supposedly pure filtered bottled water. To counter the proliferation of environmental plastics, the beverage industry has responded by reducing the amount of plastic in bottles. The sturdy bottles of yesterday have been replaced with very thin and crinkly bottles which, ironically, can result in more of those ultra-microscopic plastic particles entering the environment. What’s the solution? If you don’t trust tap water or like its taste, do this: buy a water filter (Brita, Pur, etc.) and a stainless steel water bottle. From that point on, your water will cost you pennies per gallon, you’ll no longer be paying good money to drink hundreds of thousands of plastic particles per liter, and you won’t be adding to the glut of plastics invading every corner of our planet. +
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