Do you hear ringing in the ears? Whooshing sounds? Phantom bells and whistles? If so it may be time to see a hearing professional, such as an audiologist or an otolaryngologist since you may have a case of tinnitus – the medical term for ringing in the ears. And that non-stop ringing and pinging can drive you totally nuts if you don't do something about it.

A recent study published in Archives of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery, a subsidiary journal of "JAMA," recently reported on a study conducted on this common health issue:

"Tinnitus, or the perception of sound without an external acoustic stimulus, is a common but poorly understood symptom," the authors [of the report] write as background information in the article. "Although the list of factors associated with tinnitus is long, the causes of tinnitus onset and tinnitus maintenance are far from fully understood, and attempts to develop evidence-based therapies have been thwarted by a poor understanding of the pathophysiology of the condition." Tinnitus has recently been reported to cluster in families, but little is known about the importance of genetic effects in susceptibility to the condition."

Indeed, the problems associated with tinnitus are well documented and they are real. It's not a figment of your imagination, at least in most cases. However, the causes of tinnitus are not well understood and without known causes finding successful treatment options is difficult. In addition it has been unknown if tinnitus is hereditary and if tinnitus can be caused by genetics

Study Results Show Tinnitus Is NOT Inherited

Let's crunch the numbers.

Dr. Ellen Kvestad, M.D., Ph. D, who works at the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo, Norway, and the Akershus University Hospital in Akershus, Norway, along with her colleagues, conducted broad-based research, collecting data from those who have and have not been diagnosed with tinnitus.

The study sample "...analyzed data collected from 12,940 spouses, 27,607 parents and offspring and 11,498 siblings. All participants completed a questionnaire about tinnitus and underwent a hearing examination. A subgroup of 16,186 individuals with some hearing loss and 17,785 controls were sent a second questionnaire requesting more details about tinnitus, to which a total of 28,066 responded."

Approximately 21% of study participants reported definite or probable tinnitus symptoms. "On a scale of negative one to one—where negative one would indicate that offspring always had tinnitus if their parents did not, and one would indicate that both parents and offspring always had tinnitus—correlations for tinnitus ranged from 0.01 to 0.07 for parents and offspring, depending on sex differences. The correlation between siblings ranged from 0.06 to 0.14 and the spouse correlation was 0.04," according to the Norwegian report.

The study did not take in to account different types of tinnitus – some of which may be inherited, but the low correlation of parents, children and siblings indicates that tinnitus is not passed down through the generations.

"This result needs to be replicated with other measures of tinnitus and other types of family data," the authors write in their study results.

"Our results do not necessarily mean that genetic effects are unimportant for all forms of tinnitus, because this symptom can arise from a wide variety of underlying diseases," they [the researchers] conclude. "Considering the heterogeneous origin of tinnitus, rather than searching for the genes responsible for tinnitus in general, future investigators need to identify subgroups of individuals affected by tinnitus with specific causes. Our results do not support the spending of large amounts of time and resources to identify the genes that code for tinnitus in general."

Tinnitus: It's a BIG Problem

The American Tinnitus Association (ATA) estimates that more than 50 million Americans suffer from tinnitus in some form. About 12 million experience tinnitus bothersome enough to seek medical attention. And about 2 million, the ATA estimates, are so seriously debilitated that they cannot function on a day-to-day basis.

Now, not all of those who report symptoms of tinnitus indicate that the condition is bothersome enough to create problems in their lives. But 12 million of us DO have tinnitus to the degree that it has a negative impact on the quality of life – and that's enough people to keep researchers searching for both causes and cures of this condition.

Tinnitus has been shown to cause anxiety, depression and isolation if severe enough and left unmanaged.

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