Although it has been reported that smoking has deleterious effects on the middle ears of smokers, including their eustachian tubes, investigators have failed to find differences in the tympanometric characteristics of smokers and nonsmokers. In the present study, however, we found that the Valsalva-induced tympanometric peak pressure shifts of young smokers were less than those measured among young nonsmokers. A similar but less compelling finding was observed among elderly subjects.