Drug for Curing Hearing Loss Being Tested at Military Base

An experimental drug trial is underway at the Fort Jackson military base in South Carolina.

Soldiers are taking a liquid micronutrient called d-methionine to see if it can potentially prevent hearing loss, writes The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) [1]. Methionine is an amino acid that is typically found [2] in meat, fish, and dairy products.

Southern Illinois University School of Medicine professor and audiologist Kathleen C.M. Campbell developed this compound as a drug. She’s working with the Army to find a way to help military members dealing with noise-induced hearing damage as a result of constantly-firing loud weapons.

A randomized Phase 3 Food and Drug Administration sanctioned study began in late 2013. It was designed to enroll up to 600 participants over three years, according to the WSJ report.

Here’s how this experiment breaks down:

• First, a soldier undergoes a hearing test.
• Next, the soldier is monitored over the course of 18 days, especially during time spent at the firing range. The soldiers drink either a liquid filled with the drug or placebo throughout this time period.
• At the end of this phase, soldiers take another hearing test to evaluate their ability to detect varying tone frequencies along with gauging potential changes in their hearing thresholds.

Campbell’s test isn’t the only one working on a solution for hearing-loss related damage. A Seattle-based biotech named Sound Pharmaceuticals is developing a compound [3] to help with this issue, but WSJ mentions that the study never started enrollment because of logistics concerns.

You can read the rest of WSJ story here. [1]