A prospective case-control study of 50 consecutive patients presenting with hyperlipidaemia.

The literature contains many references which refer to a causal relationship between hyperlipidaemia and hearing loss, but the majority of reports lack adequate controls, or are based on a series of cases which may represent incidental findings. This prospective case-control study compared a restricted population of 50 consecutive hyperlipidaemic patients attending a lipid clinic whose fasting lipid levels were > 2 SDs above the population mean with a control population recruited from patients undergoing nasal surgery for structural abnormalities (n = 159). The National Study of Hearing data was also compared with both groups in order to provide external validity to the control group. This study showed no consistent differences in the hearing thresholds of the hyperlipidaemic group compared with either control group. The Null hypothesis that sensorineural hearing loss is no greater in a population whose fasting blood lipids are raised > 2 SDs above the population mean level than in a control population cannot be refuted given the variability of the data.