On the last day of 2019, the New York Times’s personal-health writer, Jane Brody, had a column about new evidence on the health damage done by hearing loss — which, in turn, is related to rising levels of ambient noise. As Brody put it:

“[M]yriad health-damaging effects [are] linked to untreated hearing loss, a problem that afflicts nearly 38 million Americans and, according to two huge recent studies, increases the risk of dementia, depression, falls and even cardiovascular diseases….
“A large [new] study has documented that even among people with so-called normal hearing, those with only slightly poorer hearing than perfect can experience cognitive deficits….
Hearing loss is now known to be the largest modifiable risk factor for developing dementia, exceeding that of smoking, high blood pressure, lack of exercise and social isolation, according to an international analysis published in The Lancet in 2017.

The new study Brody was referring to, with the title “Association of Subclinical Hearing Loss With Cognitive Performance,“ is available from PubMed, here.