Dietary Habits and Nutrient Intakes Are Associated to Age-Related Central Auditory Processing Disorder in a Cohort From Southern Italy

Central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) commonly occurs in older age, however, there a few studies of a possible link between age-related CAPD and diet in an older population. The objective of the present study was to investigate two dietary hypotheses (reduced neurotrophism and increased inflammation linked to diet) for their relationship with age-related CAPD in a population >65 years, using cross-sectional and retrospective data obtained in the same population-based study about 12 years ago. We selected 734 participants (403 men) from a large population-based study. For age-related CAPD assessment, we used the Synthetic Sentence Identification with Ipsilateral Competitive Message test. Dietary habits were assessed by a Food Frequency Questionnaire. Associations between age-related CAPD and food groups/macro-and micronutrients were explored using adjusted logistic regression models. Age-related CAPD subjects consumed more dairy (111vs.98g/d), olives and vegetable oil (63vs.52g/d) and spirits (2 vs.1g/d), and less fruits (536vs.651g/d) in the cross-sectional analysis. Age-related CAPD subjects had a lower intake of potassium, vitamin C, and a higher intake of fat. Further analyses identified dietary fiber as being inversely related to age-related CAPD. The present study provided evidence that the dietary hypotheses proposed for explaining the development of cognitive disorders in older age might also hold for age-related CAPD. Further data from other large and prospective population-based studies are needed for confirming these findings.