Newswise — Saint Louis University researchers are gearing up to study three vexing problems that affect older women: osteoporosis, hearing loss and dizziness.
"The combination of dizziness, which can make you fall, and brittle bones, which can allow a fall to result in a fracture, can be particularly dangerous for older people," says Anthony Mikulec, M.D., chief of otologic and neurotologic surgery and assistant professor in the department of otolaryngology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine.
Mikulec has published research showing that patients with otosclerosis, a type of fixable hearing loss, were more likely to have the bone disease osteoporosis. Now doctors want to know if women with osteoporosis are more likely to have hearing loss.
Mikulec and Kent Wehmeier, M.D., associate professor in the division of endocrinology at Saint Louis University School of Medicine, plan to study the relationship between bone loss and specific kinds of hearing loss and dizziness in post-menopausal women.
They hypothesize that bone loss is associated with otosclerosis, a type of hearing loss that causes the last of the three ear bones not to vibrate properly due to an overgrowth of bone in the area, and benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), a type of dizziness where calcium carbonate crystals come loose in the ear and irritate nerve endings, causing a sensation of spinning.
More than half of people over 50 are at significant risk of osteroporosis. Ten million Americans are estimated to have the disease, and another 34 million are thought to have low bone mass, placing them at increased risk for fracture. Eighty percent of those with osteoporosis are women.
Post-menopausal women who are deemed at risk by their primary care physicians for osteoporosis are needed for the study. Participants will receive free hearing and vertigo tests and will undergo bone mineral density tests.
Wehmeier says he and Mikulec hope to prove an association between hearing loss/vertigo and osteoporosis but admits their work will be cut out for them. Endocrinologists know what causes osteoporosis and how to successfully treat it, he says, but otosclerosis, which affects roughly one percent of Americans, is not as well understood.
"Much more work will be needed to determine the causes of otosclerosis," Wehmeier says. "Little research has been focused on this problem, so there is a lot of speculation as to the source of the increased bone."
For more information or to enroll, call 314-977-5114.
Established in 1836, Saint Louis University School of Medicine has the distinction of awarding the first M.D. degree west of the Mississippi River. Saint Louis University School of Medicine is a pioneer in geriatric medicine, organ transplantation, chronic disease prevention, cardiovascular disease, neurosciences and vaccine research, among others. The School of Medicine trains physicians and biomedical scientists, conducts medical research, and provides health services on a local, national and international level.
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