What Caused Beethoven's Hearing Loss?

Image from Wikipedia

When Beethoven composed his 9th Symphony, it was an amazing accomplishment especially when considering he did so totally deaf.

It has been a medical mystery as to what caused his slowly progressive hearing loss to the point of deafness, but a recent publication suggests it was due to chronic low-level lead exposure consumed from wine tainted with lead.

FACT: High levels of lead were found deep in the bone suggesting chronic lead exposure over a long period of time.

FACT: Beethoven's physicians noted that he had alcohol dependence (profound liver damage was found on autopsy).

FACT: It is not unusual that wine in that time period was tainted with lead.

More significantly, the paper disputed the more common thought that his lead poisoning was due to taking excessive doses of lead-based medications administered by his doctor: lead was found deep in the bone indicating lead exposure over a long period of time and absence of physical exam signs/symptoms (ie, wrist drop) indicative of acute lead poisoning (lead consumed over a short period of time).

The paper also did rule out other causes of hearing loss including otosclerosis, autoimmune hearing loss, autoimmune inflammatory conditions, mercury poisoning, and syphilis.

Reference:
Lead and the deafness of Ludwig van Beethoven. Laryngoscope. 2013 May 17. doi: 10.1002/lary.24120. [Epub ahead of print]

Read More

Mozart May Help with Tinnitus

Currently, there is no fast, good, and cheap way of resolving tinnitus. Tinnitus is in essence hearing a ringing or buzzing that does not exist in reality. At best, it may be something you hear, but does not bother.

At worst, it can literally drive a person crazy.

Neuromonics is perhaps one of the very few treatment protocols that has been proven to work resolving/improving tinnitus in 80-90% of patients over a period of months.

However, it is expensive... typically around $6000 out-of-pocket.

In a study out of Italy, a group of patients between 22 and 78 years of age who suffered from tinnitus were told to listen to Mozart's Sonata k448for 1 hour daily for 1 month. This was followed by instruction to listen to Beethoven's Fur Elisesonata for 1 hour daily for another month.

For all the parameters investigated, there was a general significant improvement between the pre- and post-listening evaluation. Significant improvement in several parameters were seen even after a single exposure to Mozart's sonata.

So apparently listening to Mozart may not help only baby's to become smarter (debatable), but it can help adults as well.

It's also cheap... about as much as it takes to download the songs from a music store.

Some other thoughts that may require additional research...

• What if a patient hates classical music?
• Does "how" a patient listens to the music affect results? (Playing the music in background while doing some other activity versus doing nothing other than listening to the music.)
• How long does the improvement last after treatment?
• What about other songs by Mozart?

But... all in all... given it is cheap... it certainly can't hurt to give it a try.

Reference:
The Mozart effect in patients suffering from tinnitus. Acta Oto-laryngologica. Posted online on October 1, 2012. (doi:10.3109/00016489.2012.684398)

Read More