It's official. Listening to and participating in karaoke is bad for your health, Korean and Hong Kong studies have found.

The two new studies have shown that strenuous singing can damage the voice and increase the risk of noise induced hearing loss. Both studies were reported in this week's British Medical Journal.

Karaoke singing - where the singer's voice is amplified against accompanying background music - is very popular in Asia, and has spread to Europe and North America. But there have been very few studies looking at the impact of the phenomenon on the participants' health.

Noise levels in a typical karaoke singing environment were higher than 95 decibels, the Korean researchers found, after measuring average and maximum sound pressure levels during various types of karaoke singing - including ballads and rock.

In what sounds like torture, the subjects were exposed to 100 minutes of karaoke. Each singer's hearing threshold levels were measure before and after the exposure.

"Further statistical analysis of hearing threshold shift revealed that up to 8dB of significant hearing loss was found at the most important human hearing frequency band, centred at 4000Hz, after about two hours of karaoke noise exposure, indicating that karaoke facilities may pose a serious threat to noise-induced hearing loss," warned the study.

The results were published in the International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics.

But its not just listening to karaoke that is dangerous. A second study, undertaken by researchers from the University of Hong Kong, found that because most karaoke singers have no formal singing training, they are more vulnerable to developing voice problems.

The problem is karaoke singers are so enthusiastic they tend to sing for long periods without a rest and without drinking any water.

In what must be said to be a subjective measure, the researchers found that people who did have drinks and rests sounded better than those who did not. They were also able to hit the high notes the others couldn't. The study was reported in the Journal of Voice.

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