ADVANCE (May 4, 2009) by Alyssa Banotai-- In the first genome-wide association study on hearing, scientists have identified a gene they suspect to be linked to a susceptibility to presbycusis.1
Rick Friedman, MD, PhD, decided to study age-related hearing loss based on both his background-a doctorate in genetics-and the make-up of the caseload at the House Ear Institute (HEI), in Los Angeles, CA, where he is a clinician scientist. "We see a lot of patients with presbycusis," he explained, "and there's not a lot we can do for them except hearing aids, and not a lot of people want to wear them because of issues like cost and stigma."
He was interested in using the latest technology in genome mapping to study age-related hearing loss as a complex medical disorder. "We know that 50 percent of patients over the age of 80 have presbycusis, but there's about 50 percent or less that don't. Certainly, some of that could be exposure-related, but for the most part it suggests that age-related hearing loss probably is a complex genetic trait," he told ADVANCE.
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