( very difficult thing to get people to c...)Pill might be able to reduce the damage loud noise does to your hearing,Health

very difficult thing to get people to comply, and also to carry that out in their leisure activities," she said.

Scientists have pursued a variety of approaches toward an ear-fortifying pill. In 1994, for example, Israeli researchers reported that magnesium supplements helped military recruits avoid hearing loss over two months of noisy basic training. These days, much of the work focuses on antioxidants, the chemical class that most famously includes vitamins C and E.

That's because loud noise doesn't always damage the delicate inner ear immediately just by brute force. Rather, in most cases it provokes the inner ear into making harmful oxygen molecules called free radicals. Antioxidants neutralize free radicals, and the ear naturally has such defenses. But with enough noise, the ear's antioxidants are overwhelmed.

In that case, damage from the free radicals leads to death of the ear's sound receptors -- hair cells, which convert the mechanical energy of incoming sound waves into nerve messages to the brain. As hair cells die off, hearing erodes permanently. So it makes sense to try to build up the ear's antioxidant defenses as a preventive step, and as a fast treatment after noise exposure.

Antioxidants should work best if given prior to noise exposure, but animal work suggests it might reduce permanent hearing loss substantially if given within four to eight hours afterward, say researchers.

Researchers , who are involved in the test with the Marines, and other scientists have gotten encouraging results in animal work from a variety of antioxidant compounds and they are now focusing on one called N-acetylcysteine or NAC, which is already approved by federal authorities for treating overdoses of the painkiller Tylenol.

NAC not only neutralizes free radicals but also bolsters the ear's own antioxidant defenses. In the upcoming federally funded experiment with the Marines, half will get NAC in their flavored dr
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