Research posted by The Times has suggested that wearing hearing aids in middle age wards off dementia.

Hearing aids protect against dementia and should be worn by middle-aged adults as soon as they notice hearing loss, research suggests.

The landmark study looked at 438,000 people in the UK, who had an average age of 56, and followed them for 12 years.

One in four reported some level of hearing loss as they grew older. This group were 42 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with dementia.

But using hearing aids completely eliminated the extra risk of dementia linked to going deaf, making them a “powerful tool” in the global fight against the syndrome, researchers found.

Experts said that hearing aids help maintain connections between brain cells, preventing the well-established negative effects of hearing loss on brain health including of a lack of sensory stimulation and reduced social interaction.

Read more on The Times website by clicking here