A recent study has found that people living with HIV have poorer low- and high-frequency hearing than HIV-negative individuals, Medical News Today reports. Publishing their findings in JAMA Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, researchers assessed the pure-tone threshold levels of both ears of 262 men with an average age of 57 and 134 women with an average age of 48.

The participants were taken from the sites of the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study and the Women’s Interagency HIV Study. A total of 117 of the men and 105 of the women were HIV positive.

The high- and low-frequency pure tone averages in the better ears of the HIV-positive participants were significantly higher than those of the HIV-negative participants, meaning that the HIV-positive individuals had poorer hearing. Even after the researchers adjusted for CD4 count, viral load and exposure to antiretrovirals, the findings remained the same.

To read the Medical News Today story, click here.