I'm a self-diagnosed health nut. I love reading articles, tweets and blog posts about healthy living. My motto has always been that the more I know, the better I’ll be able to take care of my family. They're all familiar with the routine.

I'll read something about a new exercise routine, recipe, or place to exercise, and then, we all try it out as a family. It's all part of my master plan to keep us healthy — mind, body, and soul.

But I have to admit that in all my time worrying about things like heart health and cancer prevention, I overlooked a very important part of wellness — our hearing.

I was pleasantly surprised, recently, when I came across an article from Everyday Health on hearing loss prevention. It explains the findings of a study from the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, which found a connection between overall health and hearing, especially as we age.

As the article notes, "Good cardiovascular health increases blood flow in your body, including the blood that flows to your head. This keeps your ears hearing and functioning well."

So, that got me wondering. What else could I be doing to protect my family's hearing? I did some research, and here's what I found:

Eat a diabetes prevention diet.

According to the American Diabetes Association, though the connection is unclear, hearing loss is "twice as common" in people with diabetes compared to nondiabetics. Of course, many of the normal steps you’d take to live a healthy lifestyle will help prevent diabetes.

But you can focus your efforts by eating a diabetes prevention diet. Harvard's School of Public Health presents four key dietary decisions that go a long way to preventing diabetes. They are:

• Eat whole grains instead of highly processed carbs.
• Replace sugary drinks with water, coffee, or tea.
• Eliminate bad fats, such as those found in fried foods.
• Go with poultry or fish, instead of red meat or processed meats.

Dive in.

The Everyday Health article features a Q&A with one of the doctors behind the study. She notes that exercises that involve "large muscle movements, such as walking, bicycling, and swimming" are great choices for achieving the hearing loss prevention benefits.

My family and I love to swim, so I've chosen to make that a huge focus for us. While we always swim during the summer, I’m going to get us a membership at the local Y so that we can swim year-round at the indoor pool.

Swimming's overall benefits are just too great to deny. As this piece on swimming and heart health explains, not only does it help prevent heart disease, it does so while being easy on the joints, which is great for all of us as we age.

Check your meds.

This was a huge eye-opener for me. In its article on how to prevent hearing loss, WebMD.com explains that some medications can affect your hearing. The article says some antibiotics, cancer-fighting meds and even aspirin can damage our hearing. When you’re prescribed a new medication, be sure to ask your doctor if it has been found to contribute to hearing loss.

Stop smoking.

Of course, we're all well-aware of how damaging smoking is to our health. But now you can add hearing loss to the list of consequences. This article on healthy hearing explains that because of smoking’s effect on our breathing, the body's cells choke.

As a result, "dried out skin cells can no longer replace the cilia, making it difficult for a person to pick up or hear sound waves." Yet another reason to put down those cigarettes!

We all want to live long and healthy lives, and as a result, we focus a lot of our attention on things like heart health and cancer prevention, as well we should. But we should also expand what we know about other areas of health.

Now, armed with what I know about healthy living and hearing, I feel like I can take important steps toward protecting my family’s hearing, and I hope you will, too!