Teen Hearing Loss

A new study shows teens are losing their hearing at an alarming rate. Nearly one in five adolescents (about 6.5 million) have some form of hearing loss. The cause is probably the use of earbuds to listen to music. Details are in the Journal of the AMA. 3000 teens tested between 1988 and 1994 were compared to some 1800 kids tested between 2005 and 2006. The conclusion: Hearing loss rose from roughly 15% to 19.5%. That's a 31% increase.