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Hearing Loss from Headphones, Jet Engines May Be Reversible Have you ever noticed how you can listen to songs you know at a much louder volume (compared to songs you're hearing for the first time)? This phenomenon presents a problem for our ears, which do not benefit from increasingly louder sounds over time. Our headphones, earphones and earbuds may be more dangerous to our long term hearing than we often realize, according to the University of Leicester, which has released a study that found headphones can be as dangerous to hearing as noise from jet engines. But there is good news as well. "Nerve cells that carry electrical signals from the ears to the brain have a coating called the myelin sheath, which helps the electrical signals travel along the cell. Exposure to loud noises - i.e. noise over 110 decibels - can strip the cells of this coating, disrupting the electrical signals. This means the nerves can no longer efficiently transmit information from the ears to the brain." "However, the coating surrounding the nerve cells can reform, letting the cells function again as normal. This means hearing loss can be temporary, and full hearing can return"...

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