I’m pretty ignorant on human hearing and hearing damage but my understanding is that hearing damage from loud noise is caused when a loud sound mechanically vibrates little hairs in your inner ear and the product of the magnitude and duration of that vibration is high enough to cause damage.

Noise cancellation stops or reduces the magnitude of that vibration. So I have to disagree, I don’t think noise cancellation would cause more damage in the way you’re describing.

I didn’t read the whole article but from what I read it sounds like it’s a brain issue not a physiological one.