Two weeks ago Pete Townshend, The Who’s guitarist, described the irreparable hearing loss that he had suffered as a result of noise damage. This was caused not by excessive volume at the band’s concerts, he says, but by years spent listening to loud music through headphones in recording studios. He argued that those with the iPod habit could be damaging their hearing: “My intuition tells me there is terrible trouble ahead.” The experts are inclined to agree.

When MP3 players and iPods are turned to full volume the sound can reach 104 decibels (dB), the maximum allowed by EU safety standards but almost as loud as a pneumatic drill (110dB).

The advice from audiologists is to turn down the volume and limit use of such devices to an hour a day; the manufacturers also recommend taking regular breaks to give the ears a rest. Yet research by the Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID), as part of its “Don’t lose the music” campaign, revealed that 39 per cent of 18 to 24-year-olds don’t practise safe listening. The worry, says Angela King, senior audiologist at the RNID, is that they could be creating problems later in life.

“People with good hearing have tiny hair cells that line the inner ear and transmit signals to the brain, which it interprets as sound,” King explains. When repeatedly exposed to uncomfortably loud noises (loud is defined as above 80dB), including music through headphones and at concerts, those hair cells require a rush of blood or oxygen, otherwise “they effectively die”. Temporary hearing loss or tinnitus (ringing in the ears) is a sign that hair cells are trying to recover, but “over time recovery becomes impossible and hearing is permanently impaired”.

In fact, temporary deafness after listening to loud music is an early sign of damaged hearing, and hearing problems increase with the volume of loud noise and the length of time that someone is exposed to it.

In some ways, the advances in technology that have led to iPods have made matters worse for our ears. Before the 1980s electronically reproduced music became distorted above certain volumes, but digital sounds allow it to be played much louder without affecting the quality.

At UK cinemas, sound levels of 110dB have been recorded. A report by the TUC and RNID in 2004, Noise Overload, suggested that music played in nightclubs is so loud as to be comparable, in some cases, to standing 2ft away from an aeroplane as it takes off (110dB). At concerts the volume can reach 125dB and even aerobics classes can exceed 90dB. The pain threshold for sound is 140dB.

All this noise may be putting more than our hearing at risk. Chronic noise exposure is stressful and that, over time, can lead to hormonal changes that raise blood pressure, says Dr Stefan Willich, a cardiologist at Charité University Medical Centre in Berlin. He recently found chronic noise exposure to be a risk factor for heart disease.

What Dr Willich calls “general environment noise” (such as traffic) left women three times more likely to have a heart attack. The risk for men rose by under 50 per cent. Noisy workplaces (such as call centres or large, open-plan offices) increased the risk for men by nearly a third, although they appeared to have no impact on women.

“If you are living next to a busy street, it may still have a long-term negative effect on you even if you get used to the noise,” says Dr Willich.

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This month, researchers at Ohio State University reported that people regularly exposed to loud noises were more than twice as likely to develop a type of benign brain tumour known as an acoustic neuroma, which presses on the cranial nerve that senses sound and aids balance. According to Colin Edwards, the research leader, just five years of listening regularly to loud music (defined as 80dB) increases the tumour risk by about 2.25 times.

Too much noise may even make you fat. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University found that noisy environments lead women (but not men) to binge on junk food to cope with rising tension. In their study, published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, subjects were asked to solve maths problems in silence or while being exposed to noise. Afterwards, allowed to eat as many snack foods as they liked, the women subjected to noise consumed far more fat and calories.

Even background music intended to soothe us in, for example, health spas and supermarkets, can have the opposite effect, becoming irrtating and invasive and prompting the UK Noise Association (UKNA) to campaign for businesses to “pipe down”. Val Weedon, the group’s national co-ordinator, says: “Studies have shown that our bodies react in a negative way to noises forced upon us, as opposed to those that we listen to out of choice.”

Noise may also affect children’s development. There is evidence to suggest that pupils in schools exposed to high levels of aircraft and traffic noise learn more slowly. Researchers at Queen Mary University report in this month’s American Journal of Epidemiology that children’s reading development is adversely affected in noisier schools, and other studies have shown that chronic loud noise can exacerbate feelings of depression.

Avoiding noise altogether is, of course, virtually impossible. Even libraries and yoga studios, considered sanctuaries from the noisiness of everyday life, are not completely quiet. However, people who have undertaken “sound fasts” — that is, spending time in retreats away from the noise of television, radio, traffic and even conversation — reportedly have lower blood pressure, heart rate and stress levels afterwards.

“Just an hour of quietness a day could be hugely beneficial to your wellbeing,” says Angela King. “It will help you to unwind and stop you from feeling so stressed. Everybody needs to give their ears a break.”

How to protect your hearing