EON

Los Angeles – A study led by a US high school student has discovered that iPod music players can interfere with the proper functioning of heart pacemakers.

The results of the study were presented Thursday at a meeting of the Heart Rhythm Society in Denver, Colorado, the Denver Post reported Friday.

According to the report, the study of 83 volunteers with pacemakers found the music devices interfered with the pacemakers nearly 30 per cent of the time.

In most cases, the iPod interference caused pacemakers to misread the heart’s pacing. In one, the pacemaker stopped altogether.

The interference is probably caused by the electromagnetic field created by the iPod – which interferes with the electric function of the pacemakers, 17-year-old student Jay Thayer said.

The co-author of the study Dr Krit Jongnarangsin said none of the malfunctions were considered life threatening but that further research was needed.

“If the pacemaker is inhibited by the iPod and the patient does not have their own rhythm, they can be in serious problem,” Jongnarangsin said.

Thayer conducted the experiment by placing the popular music device some 5 centimetres from the chests of the volunteers whose average age was 77 and played Frank Sinatra tunes.

“We set the headphones on their shoulders so we didn’t blow out their eardrums,” he said.

Both of Thayer’s parents are doctors and he got the idea for the study when one of his father’s patients asked about the possible effects of iPods on pacemakers.

Thayer acknowledged that most of the study’s participants didn’t use iPods, but “a lot of them had grand kids that use iPods,” and said he would like to establish a minimum safe distance between iPods and pacemakers.