Hearing, Healthy Aging, and Longevity: Q&A with Sigurd Brandt, MD

Sleep, exercise, nutrition, hydration, strength training, and social engagement are now widely discussed as pillars of healthy aging. But hearing health is still often left out of that discussion--even though we know hearing loss can affect communication, relationships, mental well-being and cognition, and overall quality of life.

Sigurd Brandt, MD, Director and Head of Hearing Health at GN Group, believes that needs to change. A medical doctor by training, Brandt works at the intersection of hearing health, preventive care, digital health tools, and research-based public education. He is also closely involved with GN’s LISTEN TO THIS initiative, a hearing health awareness movement designed to help consumers, hearing care professionals, and other healthcare providers better understand the broader health importance of hearing.

HearingTracker had a conversation with Dr. Brandt to discuss why hearing health remains a “longevity blind spot,” how professionals can talk about hearing loss without resorting to scare tactics, and why even mild hearing difficulties should not be ignored. His comments below have been edited for clarity and brevity.

HearingTracker: Can you tell us a little about your background and how you became involved with GN’s LISTEN TO THIS initiative?

Dr. Sigurd Brandt: I joined GN in November 2021, so I’ve been with the company for about four and a half years now. I was brought in before what later became LISTEN TO THIS, so I’ve been focused on this area and seen its evolution.

I come from a medical background, with experience in clinical research and the pharmaceutical world. What attracted me to hearing was that it is located at the intersection of technology and health. It’s also a growing area of health importance, and at that time, the connection between hearing loss, cognitive decline, and dementia was gaining traction in the broader hearing health conversation.

But it was also a difficult topic to discuss. Some people were using it almost as a scare tactic, while others were staying away from it altogether. I think the industry is in a different place now, but back then, it felt like an important and evolving field--especially when you consider people over age 65 who may have several health conditions. There was an opportunity to think about hearing not only as hearing, but as part of a wider picture of health.

HearingTracker: What was the purpose of GN’s recent consumer survey?

Dr. Brandt: LISTEN TO THIS had existed for a few years before we began speaking more directly to consumers. Initially, we were focused more on hearing care professionals. But if you want to influence the broader hearing health conversation, you need to understand both sides of the consultation--the professional side and the consumer side.

When we launched the direct-to-consumer website in May, we wanted to go out with fresh numbers and a better understanding of how the general public actually thinks about hearing. We all have a sense of this from talking to friends and relatives. When people hear that you work in hearing, they often have a lot of questions, but also a lot of preconceived ideas: “Oh, you work with hearing aids and old people.”

We wanted to know how hearing fits into people’s ideas about living better for longer, healthy aging, longevity--whatever name you want to give that broader movement. The goal was to better understand the perceived importance of hearing and hearing loss.

HearingTracker: What stood out to you most from the survey findings?

Dr. Brandt: First and foremost, it was how few people are paying attention to hearing in the overall list of things they can do for a longer, healthier life.

People talk a lot about exercise, diet, sleep, and other health behaviors–and those things absolutely matter. But if you ask people to choose several things they might pay attention to at the same time, we thought it would be interesting to see whether hearing makes the list.

That is why we’re calling hearing a kind of “longevity blind spot.” Hearing is one of those areas people simply do not assign the same importance to. There is often this attitude of, “I can just ask people to repeat themselves,” or “I’ll just leave the party a little earlier.”

In the moment, that may not seem like a major problem. But those things can compound over time.

HearingTracker: When considering physicians and the medical community in general, why do you think hearing health has not entered the healthy aging conversation in the same way as sleep, steps, nutrition, or strength training?

Dr. Brandt: From a medical perspective, I think many general practitioners feel they have more urgent conditions to treat first. Hearing may simply fall lower on the priority list.

That is understandable in one sense. Healthcare professionals have the same 24 hours in a day as everyone else, and they have many topics they need to stay up to date on. Hearing may not have been promoted as much as other conditions. And if physicians believe audiologists or hearing care professionals are already handling it, they may assume it is being taken care of without need for their focus.

But that is also why I think there is a real opportunity. A physician does not necessarily need to spend a lot of time on hearing. It could be as simple as paying attention to it, spending 10 seconds on it during a checkup, and recommending that someone get their hearing tested.

The potential return on that small “health investment” can be very large, because you may be helping people achieve long-term benefits by putting more emphasis on hearing.

I also think the audiological community has a role to play. Hearing care professionals are rightly focused on the audiogram, fitting the device, and helping the patient hear better. But as we learn more about the broader health impacts of hearing, we should also place greater focus on the importance of the work being done. Audiological services may look similar to other health-related services, but the impact changes as we understand more about the broader health implications.

I think there’s an opportunity to use positive reinforcement with patients, letting them know they’re tipping the scales in their favor across many health metrics.

HearingTracker: How should consumers think about the relationship between hearing and longevity?

Dr. Brandt: I see hearing as one of the levers you can tweak. It’s one of the things that are relatively easy to improve that, when taken together, should boost your odds against a host of negative health factors.

For example, when we talk about cognition and brain health, the emerging picture from research like the ACHIEVE study¹  is that if you have several risk factors, adding hearing loss on top of them may tip the scales toward cognitive decline. The Lancet Commission studies^2,3 and others suggest that hearing loss treatment can play a meaningful role in reducing risk for dementia in at least some populations.^4,5

In other words, you need to view each risk factor individually. If you do not have many risk factors, hearing may not be the factor that makes the biggest difference for your brain health. But if you do have other risk factors, it may matter a lot.

We still need to be careful about causality. We should not jump the gun. But there is a lot of research showing that hearing changes how the brain works. The brain has considerable plasticity and can adapt its sensory processing in response to hearing loss. It changes how it connects with the world. Even in milder cases, it matters to do something about it. The good news is that some of these changes appear to be reversible or modifiable when people take action.

Hearing also connects to social engagement and mental health. For people who used to be very social but have stopped participating because they feel excluded from conversations, hearing difficulty can take a real toll. You can feel isolated even in a large group. You can have a greater risk of depression or anxiety, including anxiety around social gatherings, because you know you may be the person sitting there, nodding along, and hoping you understood enough.

If you can help yourself hear better, you may be able to re-engage in the things that bring joy and quality of life. That matters for overall health--and, importantly, quality of life.

And then there is physical health. We know strength training helps maintain balance and skeletal muscle. But hearing also plays a role in how we interact with our environment, and hearing loss is linked with fall risk.^6-8

So, I see hearing as part of a longevity battery. Ideally, you should take a series of steps to support healthy aging.

Hearing is one of the relatively low-effort things. You put your hearing aids in every morning, take them out at night, and they passively do what they are intended to do: help you hear better and interact with the world around you.

HearingTracker: Are there studies showing that treating hearing loss directly extends life?

Dr. Brandt: To my knowledge, I have not seen a study that clearly shows that improving hearing directly extends life, although as I mentioned, there is the relationship with falls--which can be particularly life-threatening for older adults.

There is some evidence that people with increasing levels of hearing loss have a higher risk of earlier mortality compared with people without hearing loss.^9,10 But I am not aware of a study that proves the reverse: that better hearing, by itself, extends life.

That’s an important distinction. We should be accurate. But the broader picture still suggests that hearing is connected to many things that matter for health and quality of life.

HearingTracker: What would you say to someone who says, “I hear fine--I just have trouble in restaurants, bars, or family gatherings”?

Brandt: I would tell them that it is about much more than whether you can hear at any given moment; it’s about the compounding effect over time.

You may not notice the difference within a month, or even within a year. But if you could look 5 years ahead and compare the same “soundtrack” of your life, I think you might be surprised by how much has changed.

So, the issue is not only, “Do I hear better the moment I leave the office?” It is also, “What does better hearing allow me to keep doing over the long term?”

Hearing difficulty can slowly affect social activity, confidence, and the role you play in your family or community.^11-13 Having to make sense of conversations with untreated hearing loss can cause listening fatigue and disengagement.

HearingTracker: For hearing care professionals, what might be an important, overlooked point to remember when a patient reports difficulty hearing, even if the hearing loss appears to be mild?

Brandt: One thing I found fascinating in recent research¹⁴ is that the feeling of difficulty can correlate strongly with the benefits of hearing care, and even with physiological measures, regardless of the exact level of hearing loss.

There has even been research¹⁵ suggesting that changes in cortical volume may correlate more with how difficult a person feels it is to hear than with hearing loss status alone.

So if someone sits in front of an audiologist and says, “I really struggle to hear,” that can be significant. Even if the audiogram shows only mild hearing loss, their perceived difficulty may still reflect a real problem.¹⁶ It may also indicate that they could benefit meaningfully from help—whether that’s tips for better communication management, an assistive device or app, or a hearing aid.

HearingTracker: How can professionals talk about hearing loss and cognitive health without scaring people?

Brandt: Obviously, I agree that we should not scare people. But we should inform them.

Conversations with patients require careful consideration. When I worked clinically, I once saw a patient in her 50s for high blood pressure. I initially thought her average blood pressure was just below the threshold. After she left, I recalculated it and realized it was slightly above. I had to call her back and explain what it meant.

When she came back two weeks later, she had practically planned her entire retirement. She had told her boss it was time to quit and focus on herself and her life. To me, as a physician, our conversation had seemed very routine: it was about blood pressure being a few points high. But to her, it carried a completely different meaning.

That experience has stayed with me. There can be a big disconnect between the message you think you are conveying and the way it is received.

So, when it comes to hearing, we need to communicate in a way that helps people understand the importance without feeling frightened. The line, to me, is to focus on what people can do. We can say: Hearing is one thing you can act on today to optimize outcomes. Hearing better also helps in many other parts of life.

We should be clear that the evidence does not mean hearing loss guarantees dementia or cognitive decline. These are correlations and risk factors, and each person’s situation–each patient population–can differ. But we can still have a productive conversation about the role hearing may play.

There are examples showing that it is possible to talk about dementia and hearing loss in a way that consumers find educational rather than frightening.^17-18 The goal should be to inform, motivate, and help people act–not to scare them into action. It’s possible to discuss the hearing loss-dementia association in ways that are educational and motivating, rather than frightening, by clearly explaining uncertainty, avoiding causal overstatements, and emphasizing the proven communication and quality-of-life benefits of hearing care.

HearingTracker: Do you think hearing health awareness may start reaching people earlier in life?

Brandt: I hope so. If we think of hearing as something you can “tweak” as part of your health, then there is a whole demographic of people already trying to optimize many aspects of their lives.

Maybe we can get more people to protect their hearing when they go to concerts. Maybe people in their 30s and 40s, who are already thinking about exercise, nutrition, and other health goals, will also begin paying attention to hearing.

It is a relatively low-effort area compared with many other things. And if consumer technology companies help create a different narrative around hearing, it could become much more mainstream for people to act earlier.

HearingTracker: Where can people learn more about LISTEN TO THIS?

Brandt: LISTEN TO THIS has been established as a movement. We want as many people as possible to join in with a shared voice around the importance of hearing health.

We began by focusing on hearing care professionals, and more recently expanded to consumers. We offer knowledge and tools in both areas. For professionals, there are master classes by subject researchers and experts, such as Drs. Frank Lin, Barbara Weinstein, Helen Henshaw, Anitha Roa, and more. They include CEU opportunities in the United States, with topics ranging from brain health and dementia to hearing loss and social engagement. We also recently launched content to help physicians have broader health conversations with patients, rather than focusing solely on hearing.

There are also free resource tools, such as posters, brochures, conversation starters, and patient leaflets that can be taken home. We also try to share research updates in shorter formats, including on LinkedIn, so people can stay current without having to spend a lot of time digging through the literature.

The goal is non-commercial and above brand. We are not trying to promote a specific product. We are focused on hearing loss, hearing health, and helping more people understand why this matters.