(Steven Reinberg/ HealthDay) — Imagine a ringing in your ears so intense and unrelenting that you become desperate enough to try to kill yourself.
That is a reality for some — women in particular — who suffer from severe tinnitus, new research shows.
The survey of 72,000 Swedish adults found that 9% of women who suffered from severe tinnitus had attempted suicide, as had 5.5% of men.
After analyzing the data, European researchers found that the association between ringing ears and risk for attempted suicide was only significant for women.
“It is important to say that an increased risk of suicide attempts does not mean an increased risk in suicide events,” said lead researcher Christopher Cederroth, from the laboratory of experimental audiology at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. Also, only an association and not a cause-and-effect link was observed. (…)