by Neil Bauman, Ph.D.
After reading one of my emails to a group, a lady remarked,
WHOA! I did not know that caffeine can cause tinnitus. I drink a lot of diet pop mostly Diet Coke or Diet Pepsi and have had tinnitus for 10+ years. Tell me more.
It has been “conventional wisdom” for many years that caffeine causes tinnitus although there don’t seem to be any studies to back up this assumption.
As a result, in 2011, Dr. Lindsay St. Claire and colleagues at the Center for Hearing and Balance Studies at the University of Bristol in the UK conducted a double-blind trial of 66 people for 30 days to test this assumption. They concluded that caffeine had no significant effect on tinnitus. Based on this one study, now it seems that everyone is reporting that there is no association between caffeine and tinnitus.
Unfortunately, this flies in the face of numbers of people who have noticed a direct correlation between their tinnitus and their caffeine consumption. So what is the truth?
There is plenty of anecdotal evidence that caffeine consumption and tinnitus are indeed related in some way. For example, In a survey done by the American Tinnitus Association (ATA), the results confirmed this. Jennifer Born reported,
“As recently as 2005, we asked our ATA members in a member survey whether or not they felt that their tinnitus was affected by caffeine consumption. Though it was not a scientific survey, 24% of our members felt that their tinnitus got worse after consuming caffeine.” (1)
A bit later, Jennifer explained, “I know that here at the American Tinnitus Association, we have gotten numerous letters over the years from our members that reducing their caffeine intake did cause a reduction and in some cases a total alleviation of tinnitus symptoms.” (1)
On the other side of the coin there is a different story. Jennifer continues, “However we have also heard that reducing or completely eliminating caffeine had absolutely no bearing on some individual’s tinnitus and all it did was cause caffeine withdrawal including nausea and headaches.” (1)
This latter view is exactly what the above-mentioned study found.
How do we reconcile these divergent views? The answer is simple. Caffeine affects the tinnitus of some people and doesn’t apparently affect the tinnitus of other people.
Therefore, if you eat or drink something that causes your tinnitus to get louder or more intrusive, then you are sensitive to that substance. Conversely, if it makes no difference to your tinnitus, then, no matter what others say, you can continue to eat/drink it without worrying about your tinnitus.
At the same time, since you drink a lot of diet soda, your tinnitus may be due to other chemicals in the soda. For example, Aspartame can cause your tinnitus to get worse also.
If you wonder whether your tinnitus is related to all the diet soda you drink, stop for a couple of weeks and then assess whether your tinnitus has changed or not. If there is no difference, then your tinnitus is obviously from other causes.
If you want to learn more about the many different things that can trigger tinnitus, or more about many things you can do to help bring your tinnitus under control, check out my book, “Take Control of Your Tinnitus— Here’s How“.
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(1) Tinnitus: Is There A Caffeine Connection? Jennifer Born, American Tinnitus Association.
I drink mainly coffee, but for 48 hours I have switched to tea, fruit juice or water – no coffee at all.
The tinnitus is markedly lower and today I have a job detecting it. My blood pressure is about 10mmHg lower.
I will go on a few more days and if the changes persist I will have to drink decaffeinated only.
The same applies to tea, I suppose, since black tea seems to have about half as much caffeine as coffee does.
Time to rethink and perhaps drink distilled water much more often.
Hi James:
It looks like you found what makes your tinnitus worse. For some people drinking caffeine has no effect on their tinnitus, and for other people it makes it worse. It looks like you’re one of the latter. So cutting out caffeine in your various foods and drinks might be a wise idea to keep your tinnitus under control.
Cordially,
Neil
It appears that tinnitus is related to stimulants like caffeine. So what to do without caffeine? Perhaps there is another product that will act similarly.
Hi Stewart:
Tinnitus CAN be related to caffeine in some people, but it is not true in other people. So if you have tinnitus, you can try dumping all caffeine for a couple of weeks and see whether your tinnitus changes. If in drops and then rises again when you start drinking coffee again, you know you are sensitive to caffeine. If there is no change either way, then you can drink all the coffee you want without affecting your tinnitus. Your tinnitus will be from some other cause.
I’m not sure what your question is. You want to know what a coffee substitute would be that would not cause tinnitus? What’s wrong with water? I quit drinking coffee back in 1971 and have never had a cup of coffee since. That’s 48 years now. You can drink herbal teas too if you like. They do not contain caffeine. Regular tea does.
Cordially,
Neil
Just wondering if drinks that contain erythritol and/or stevia leaf extract are okay for tiinnitus
Hi Kevin:
I’ve never heard of a link between Stevia and tinnitus so I think it is fine.
I have no information on erythritol so can’t say anything about it one way or the other.
Do you have reason to suspect either of these as causing tinnitus?
Cordially,
Neil
My tinnitus has been getting worse lately. Initially I thought it may have been the sucralose content in my diet, so I had removed coffee and soda from it completely (the soda I was drinking contains mainly sucralose as a sweetener) and the symptoms seemed to lessen, even though I continued drinking black tea sweetened with a bit of sugar throughout.
After having a standard coke yesterday(no sucralose), the tinnitus is back and has worsened.
The only constants between the sucralose sweetened cola and standard cola I can think of is caffeine and phosphoric acid.
Could it possibly be the latter? or is it most likely caffeine, even though my symptoms had subsided while continuing to consume caffeine via black tea?
The reason I am suspicious that it may be sucralose is because I had the same issue with aspartame a couple of years ago, which was resolved by cutting aspartame completely from my diet.
Hi Amber:
I have no specific information on Sucralose, but aspartame can certainly cause tinnitus so I sure wouldn’t be surprised if Sucralose did too. And remember, Sucralose is just sucrose (sugar) with a chlorine atom added.
I’d try eliminating ALL artificial sweeteners from your diet and see what happens. Good alternatives are Stevia and Lo Han–which are natural sweeteners.
Cordially,
Neil