We all know that smoking is very bad news for our health - and every year, the statistics charting the evolution of smoking-induced illnesses show more of the devastating effects of this extremely toxic yet incredibly widespread human habit. However, how many of you knew that smoking can also lead to loss of hearing? We may be tempted to initially dismiss this as not relevant or significant enough (in the end, when put next to cancer, loss of hearing may not sound like such a terrible thing, mainly because it doesn't mean losing our lives); however, none of the side-effects of smoking should be ignored for the very simple reason that they alter the quality of our lives for ever and affect us and our loved ones in incredibly varied ways.

A team of scientists at the University of Antwerp in Belgium conducted a study investigating the connection between smoking and loss of hearing and concluded that there was a "significant association" between how much somebody smokes, the interval in which this occurs and high-frequency hearing loss. "The higher significance when testing the association with pack years (that is, years spent smoking) gives support to the hypothesis that the effect of smoking on hearing loss is dose-related", the study said. In other words, the longer you smoke, the bigger your chances are to go deaf.

Even more worryingly, there is also a connection between smoking, hearing loss and obesity. The higher a patient's body mass index (BMI) and the more he smokes, the greater the hearing loss will be. "The hearing loss is proportional to how much you smoke and your BMI", said Erik Fransen, doctor of biomedical sciences at the University of Antwerp. "The relationship became much stronger with more smoking, which says that the effect of smoking on hearing loss is linear. It starts getting worse once you have smoked regularly for more than one year. And it does not matter when you smoked, whether it is now or in the past", he adds. What is worse, once hearing loss does occur, it cannot be stopped. "Once the damage is done, it's done. It does not repair", he says.