Age-related hearing loss in twins

Dr Claire Steves and colleagues at the Department of Twin Research and Genetic Epidemiology at King's College London are conducting a pilot study of older female twins to find out whether it's possible to unpick the relationship between age-related hearing loss, genetics and the environment.

(Small project grant: 2009-2010)

Dr Steves' research aims to assess the feasibility of conducting a hearing test for older female twins and will also provide pilot data to see whether extending this testing to the whole cohort would have sufficient power to study environment-gene interactions, in particular, through modification of the DNA structure (epigenetics). This study has the unique advantage of being able to look at twins who have the same genes, similar upbringing, but different hearing profiles, i.e. are discordant for age-related hearing impairment.

This Deafness Research UK grant is to fund the purchase of audiometers for measuring hearing loss in a cohort of 352 female twins over the age of 55.

If the pilot is successful, the team will go on to conduct hearing tests on more than 3,800 twins and try to relate the results to 15 years worth of data already collected as part of the Twins UK research programme.

The application of studying discordant twins may enable a significant breakthrough in the understanding of age-related hearing impairment which affects nearly half of all older people in the UK. This could lead to benefits in terms of prevention strategies and be a step in the path to finding new treatments.