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Comment by maroonblazer | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to know if similar work is being done for loss of hearing/deafness. Is there an auditory equivalent to retinal pigment epithelium that nourishes the hair cell stereocilia?

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I would love to see if there are any updates/trials going on in regards to hearing/deafness. Suffering from Tinnitus and hearing loss is not pretty.

I'm by no means experienced in this field, but wouldn't cochlear implants count to some extent? I know those sidestep the hearing loss rather than fixing it directly, but the end result is essentially the same. My mom has dealt with hearing loss since her early years of childhood, and peaking in total hearing loss about 15 years ago. Just a year or two later, she was included in a study and was able to get a cochlear implant for free. Not too long after, she was lucky enough to be offered a second one at no charge (the benefits of being a beta tester), and to this date, she's still being given new speech processors that constantly improve the quality of sound as well as adding new features. It honestly blows me away with what they've done already with hearing, and I won't be surprised if in 10-15 years, those implants surpass a normal human's capabilities, and people who still have perfectly working ears start getting them.

Alternative remedy groups recommend magnesium supplements to treat tinnitus. I know at least one person whose tinnitus improved and became more bearable after improving their magnesium status. I rapidly get noise sensitive when I become magnesium deficient due to fever or vomiting and it rapidly resolves with consuming magnesium rich foods.

If you are magnesium deficient, you may also need calcium, vitamin D and vitamin K to fully resolve the issue.

This lab at Stanford is working on some similar things (there are also other research centers I can't recall right now): https://hearinglosscure.stanford.edu/

I'm watching them like a hawk hoping that some day my 2 year old son might benefit from their work.

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