The way you speak can help diagnose a number of ailments, scientists say –

Too loud, too casual, too stylish, too mouse-like? Some of us may worry about what our voices say about us.

But it could soon be a lifesaver as it provides doctors with vital clues about whether we’re at risk for Parkinson’s, heart disease or even Alzheimer’s.

In the most recent change, doctors used short audio recordings to assess whether people are at risk for a heart attack due to clogged arteries.

Cardiologists from the Mayo Clinic in the United States told the American College of Cardiology conference last month that their study of more than 100 patients showed that an artificial intelligence computer program can accurately predict coronary heart disease – plaque buildup in the heart arteries. – analyze three 30-second clips of patient voices.

The computer took 10,000 speech samples from patients with coronary artery disease. From this, he learned to decode 80 characteristic aspects of patient voices, such as changes in frequency, pitch, volume and expressions that are too subtle to be perceived by the human ear.

In the study, 108 patients, all of whom underwent coronary angiography (an X-ray to assess the condition of the heart arteries), were asked to take a sample while reading a prepared text.

Those classified by the computer algorithm as “high risk” for heart disease also had angiograms, showing they were twice as likely to have heart problems as those classified as “low risk.”

Over the next two years, about 60 percent of high-risk patients were hospitalized for chest pain or heart attacks, compared to 30 percent of those with low-risk speech.

Scientists are unsure why some vocal functions may indicate heart disease. One theory is that it has to do with the autonomic nervous system, the part that controls bodily processes that we don’t consciously think about, including heartbeat and speech.

Since the same system controls both functions, it’s possible that heart problems are sending some subtle fluctuations through our speech.

Those classified as “high risk” for heart disease by the computer algorithm also had angiograms showing that they were twice as likely to have heart problems as those classified as “low risk.”

A similar system is being tested in the Netherlands to detect the first signs of dementia. The project at Amsterdam’s Alzheimer’s Center asks older people to record their voices on their smartphones and send them for analysis via a computer algorithm.

The algorithm detects subtle changes in intonation, clarity and language habits, such as using only simple verbs and making slight pronunciation mistakes, which may be some of the earliest indicators of dementia.

Meanwhile, researchers in Italy are using speech algorithms to detect Parkinson’s disease, which is known to cause hypokinetic dysarthria, where speech is soft, monotonous, and artless.

In February, scientists in Rome reported in the journal Frontiers in Neurology that their study of more than 200 elderly people showed that a computer algorithm can detect the disease even in people who do not yet show symptoms.

Voice search has great potential, says John Rubin, ENT surgeon and head of voice disorders at University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

“People have long been interested in using their voices for diagnosis,” he says. Since the 1970s, research has shown that people can tell how old someone is by hearing them speak. That’s where this kind of research begins.’

A 2016 study at Nottingham Trent University found that most people can decipher cues about the health, height and age of others by listening to their voices. Speech analysis may be an evolutionary trait that will help us choose a suitable mate, the researchers said.

Rumor can even provide clues to a woman’s fertility, according to a 2019 study from James Madison University in Virginia published in Evolutionary Psychology.

He recorded the number of females from one to ten once a week for four weeks and replicated these to male volunteers. The voice of a woman at the peak of fertility was perceived as so sexy that the sound of her counting simple numbers boosted testosterone levels in male listeners.

Dr. Melanie Shoup-Knox, the psychologist who led the study, says there may be a physical explanation for subtle fertility-related changes in women’s language.

“The larynx is particularly sensitive to sex hormones,” he says. “These can increase or hinder the clarity of the voice, depending on the amount of hormone.”

Speaking clearly can also make a woman more attractive, according to scientists from the University of California, Irvine and the University of Utah, who found that men find women’s voices 73% more attractive when they speak with high intelligibility.

But one of the study’s authors, psychologist Dr. Daniel Stehr says this only works for women. She says guys can get away with grumbling and bad diction can actually make them look more attractive.

And while a deep voice in a man may be considered sexually attractive, research suggests it has little to do with fertility.

“Conversely, men whose voices were classified as attractively low tended to have lower sperm concentrations in their ejaculate,” evolutionary biologists at the University of Western Australia warned in 2011 in the journal PLoS One.

Whether you’re tenor or bass, knucklehead or humming, the pandemic blockade and social isolation of the past two years has eroded our voice, say Trinity College Dublin researchers.

They investigated 1,575 people who had experienced a hoarse voice or discomfort in their vocal tract since the initial blockade of the coronavirus.

The massive increase in video calling use was attributed to 85% of respondents complaining of sore throat and hoarseness since the start of the pandemic, writing in Voice Magazine in late 2020.

As Rubin explains, “Since the onset of the pandemic, most of us have come to rely on Zoom or something similar to communicate. We talk to each other from rooms with different acoustics. This makes sounds different so we can force our voices to speak louder.

‘We often indulge ourselves and lean towards the computer, which is not good posture and can affect the health of our voices. If we want to pay attention to our voice, the answer is to keep ourselves physically fit by, for example, brisk walking three or four times a week.

What we eat and drink is also important. Acid reflux can damage the vocal cords, so avoid eating spicy and fatty foods if this is an issue. And we need to stay hydrated by drinking two to three liters of fluid a day, consuming it constantly all this time”.