The Sunday News
YOUR ears produce earwax constantly so that, ideally, you’ll maintain just the right amount in your ear canals. Unless you have an earwax blockage, which I’ll discuss below, it’s actually best to leave your earwax alone — don’t try to remove it with cotton swabs or other devices.
In fact, if you have too little earwax in your ear canal, your ears may feel dry and itchy. This is because earwax is there for a reason — to protect your ears and provide lubrication. It does this by:
- Preventing dust, bacteria, and other germs from entering and damaging your ear
- Trapping dirt and slowing the growth of bacteria
- Protecting the skin of your ear canal from becoming irritated by water
Your ears are self-cleaning: Keep the cotton swabs out
Your ear canals are self-cleaning, and earwax is the self-cleaning agent. According to the American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF), under ideal circumstances your ear canals should never have to be cleaned.
Excess earwax should move out of your ear canal automatically, as cells there actually migrate naturally. The removal of earwax is also helped along by movements of your jaw (talking, chewing, etc.), and once it reaches your outer ear it will simply fall out or be removed when you shower or bath.
Your genes determine whether your earwax is wet or dry
There are two types of earwax:
- Wet, which is sticky and yellow or brown in colour
- Dry, which is crumbly and lighter colour, grey, or tan
A single gene has been identified as the determining factor in which type of earwax you have, and your family background matters. Dry earwax is common in East Asian populations while wet earwax dominates in African and European populations. The same gene variant that leads to dry earwax is also responsible for reduced underarm body odour in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean individuals.
Interestingly, when measuring the concentration of 12 volatile organic compounds in earwax from East Asian and white men, Caucasian earwax had more odorous compounds, which one day might be used to help detect disease.
Earwax might reveal exposure to pollutants.
Like certain other bodily secretions, earwax may be an indicator of your exposure to environmental pollutants, although there’s not much reason to measure earwax pollutants as opposed to, say, getting a blood test.
Whale earwax has been described as “a time capsule for stress and toxins,” with one analysis showing the whale had been exposed to several organic pollutants, including pesticides and flame-retardant chemicals, as well as mercury, and had higher levels of the stress hormone cortical released upon reaching the age of sexual maturity.
Earwax blockages: When to remove earwax
I have treated hundreds of people in my life that had ceriman impactions. Typically, this required flushing the ear with a syringe or using a dental irrigator to soften the ceriman so it could come out.
The wax can effectively eliminate most of the sound coming to that ear making one nearly deaf on one side. It’s estimated that more than 12 million people a year suffer from impacted earwax. This accumulation of earwax may cause your ear canal to become blocked. — www.mercola.com
