The animal-like noises of other people chewing are a fact of life – but for some people, the sound is so revolting, they feel disgust and fear whenever they hear it.

The condition is called ‘misophonia’ – and sufferers describe feeling the urge to run away when they hear sounds such as someone eating crisps.

Others say they feel the urge to ‘lash out’ at people breathing heavily nearby.

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But now doctors believe that the condition has a biological basis – after researchers at Newcastle university found an abnormality in the frontal lobe in people with the condition.

They also measured increased heart rate and sweating in sufferers.

Dr Sukhbinder Kumar from the Institute of Neuroscience at Newcastle University said, ‘For many people with misophonia, this will come as welcome news as for the first time we have demonstrated a difference in brain structure and function in sufferers.

‘Patients with misophonia had strikingly similar clinical features and yet the syndrome is not recognised in any of the current clinical diagnostic schemes. This study demonstrates the critical brain changes as further evidence to convince a sceptical medical community that this is a genuine disorder.”

Tim Griffiths, Professor of Cognitive Neurology at Newcastle University said: ‘I hope this will reassure sufferers. I was part of the sceptical community myself until we saw patients in the clinic and understood how strikingly similar the features are.

‘We now have evidence to establish the basis for the disorder through the differences in brain control mechanism in misophonia. This will suggest therapeutic manipulations and encourage a search for similar mechanisms in other conditions associated with abnormal emotional reactions.’