Endogenous factors related to susceptibility to damage from noise.

There are few endogenous factors related to susceptibility to damage from noise other than those that affect the transmission of sound to the cochlea--i.e., characteristics of the outer and middle ears--and a few substances that affect the oxygen reaching the cochlea, including oxygen intake itself. Susceptibility has not been shown to be dependent on gender, skin color, any known diseases, mental attitude toward the noise, exposure history, preexposure hearing loss, nor-surprisingly, in view of the importance of carbon monoxide--history of smoking.