For many of us, nothing says “nuisance” like earwax—that annoying, sticky substance inside our ears. Despite the negative connotation, earwax is actually more of a friend than foe to our well-being.
First and foremost, earwax (also called cerumen) maintains and protects the skin inside the ear, preventing damaging elements like dirt and bacteria from getting into the eardrum.
But wait, there’s more—recent research indicates that earwax contains “indicators” that can inform our overall health. According to a recent BBC article, “What your earwax can reveal about your health,” scientists have been focusing on earwax as a means of learning more about health conditions such as heart disease, cancer, Type 2 diabetes, and more.
Let’s dig into the article and find out why earwax is more essential than meets the eye.
Examples of health conditions identified by earwax
Did you know that medical research has found links between certain systemic illnesses (or conditions that affect the entire body versus one area) and components found in earwax?
For instance, research has shown that patients with Ménière’s disease (“an inner ear problem that can cause dizzy spells, also called vertigo, and hearing loss,” according to Mayo Clinic) have lower levels of three fatty acids in their earwax than those with healthy hearing.
Other health conditions that can similarly be detected in earwax include COVID-19, diabetes, and arteriosclerosis, which is a type of coronary heart disease.
Says Rabi Ann Musah, an environmental chemist at Louisiana State University who was quoted in the article: “Our interest in earwax as a reporter of disease is directed at those illnesses that are very difficult to diagnose using typical biological fluids like blood or urine or cerebral spinal fluid, which take a long time to diagnose because they are rare.”
What is it about earwax that helps identify health conditions?
What makes earwax such a key indicator of health information is its ability to show the “inner chemical reactions” happening inside the body—specifically, the body’s metabolism.
According to Nelson Roberto Antonios Filho, professor of chemistry at Brazil’s Federal University of Goiás, many diseases in living organisms are “metabolic” (metabolic relates to metabolism, or the chemical process by which the body converts food and drink into energy). These include cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease.
“In these [diseases], mitochondria—the cell organelles responsible for converting lipids, carbohydrates, and proteins into energy—begin to function differently to those in healthy cells,” Filho explains. “They start to produce different chemical substances and may even stop producing others.”
Earwax concentrates these substances at a greater rate than natural bodily fluids like sweat, blood, tears, and urine.
Taking this into account, Filho and his team began developing the cerumenogram, a tool they say can precisely predict whether people have certain types of cancer—all determined by their earwax. Using the cerumenogram, they have identified numerous compounds in earwax that serve as identifiers for cancers such as lymphoma, carcinoma, and leukemia.
“In the future, we hope that the cerumenogram will become a routine clinical examination, preferably every six months, that allows, with a small portion of earwax, to simultaneously diagnose diseases such as diabetes, cancer, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s,” says Filho, “as well as evaluate metabolic changes resulting from other health conditions.”
Learn more from the article here, and take the first step toward proactive health management. Schedule an appointment with us today to discover how the cerumenogram can play a vital role in early detection and prevention of serious diseases. Our experienced team is here to guide you through the process and answer any questions you may have.
