Who knew a tiny piece of technology could cause so much trouble? A new study presented to a group of heart specialists claims those popular Apple iPods can cause implanted pacemakers to malfunction. If that news doesn’t make your heart skip a beat consider the fact that the report was done by a high school student.
Seventeen-year-old Jay Thaker is making headlines around the world with his medical research study that shows the trendy music devices negatively affect a pacemaker’s performance.
“We held it (by the heart), tuned it on and off a couple of times with four different iPods,” Thaker told news reporters.
According to Thaker’s study, using the iPod close to a pacemaker caused abnormally high heart rate readings.
“Usually it’s below 100 beats per minute,” Thaker said. “But we were seeing some recorded in the 170 to 190 beats per minute range.”
If you think that’s bad, Thaker goes on to reveal that in one case an iPod used in the study prevented the pacemaker from functioning correctly.
“Basically, as we brought the iPod closer to the pacemaker and turned it on, the pacemaker stopped pacing the heart for three beats and then resumed pacing again,” Thaker said.
The teen—whose parents are both doctors— completed his study with researchers from Michigan State University. The group found that iPods with photo and video capabilities created more interference with the pacemakers compared to the iPods that just played music.
If you are wondering why a high school senior is more interested in figuring out how an iPod affects pacemakers rather than how it could impact his social life—you aren’t alone. (Frankly, I wondered the same thing.) As it turns out, Thaker says he’s been interested in science and medicine since he was a young boy. Equally surprising to me was the fact that the panel of doctors, which consisted of some of the best cardiologists in the world, said they weren’t phased by the teen’s age.
“It’s not uncommon to have a high school student help with the research,” one of the cardiologists told reporters. “What surprised me the most is that he came up with the idea for the research.”
In addition to the presentation he made to the cardiologists in Denver yesterday, Thacker also shared his findings at conferences in China and Michigan earlier this year. The teen says he hopes to enroll at Michigan State University in the fall so he can continue to work with some of the same researchers who were on his iPod project.
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