LIVE WELL FOR LONGER

Early years spent plugged into a personal stereo, or playing music so loud in our bedroom or car that our ears ring, can become a problem later on as we age. Damage to hearing accumulates, and it’s only when we reach our middle years that early damage to eardrums becomes noticeable. The charity Action on Hearing Loss estimates that 12 million of us across the UK now live with hearing loss – that’s around one in six.

Although we might suppose this is largely a problem that affects the ageing population, according to the latest WHO figures, the worrying trend is that nearly half of all young people aged between 12 and 35 years are at risk too, due to the increasingly excessive exposure to loud noise. This includes sources we might not think of as being particularly troublesome, such as incessant traffic sound and the music