Listening to the so-called music that young people have on their MP3 players these days might be enough to give some readers a heart attack. Now researchers are warning that the player itself could trigger problems.

Researchers at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston placed the headphones of MP3 players on the chests of patients who had implanted defibrillators or pacemakers. The headphones interfered with device operation in 14 of 60 patients, they told the American Heart Association conference in New Orleans.

“Exposure of a defibrillator to the headphones can temporarily deactivate the defibrillator,” says study leader William Maisel (AFP / Reuters). “The main message here is: it’s fine for patients to use their headphones normally, meaning they can listen to music and keep the headphones in their ears. But what they should not do is put the headphones near their device.”

The problem is the magnets in headphones, but keeping them 3 cm away from the heart devices seemed to eliminate any problems.

Other cardiologists are backing the warning from Maisel.

“Don’t put the device near your torso,” says Peter Cheung, an assistant professor of internal medicine at Texas A&M (WSJ). “Instead of your breast pocket, put it in your pants pocket or purse, and don’t let the speakers hang from your shoulder or neck.”

Karol Watson, co-director of preventative cardiology at UCLA, told CNN more studies would be needed to demonstrate the risk was actually real.

“Plenty of people with implanted cardiac devices listen to iPods, so if there was something there, we would have seen it,” says Watson.

Wired points out that the problem is an unlikely event:

We’d file this in the “Unlikely” category. It reminds us of the joke about the man who tells his doctor “It hurts when I do this”. The doctor replies “Well, don’t do it, then”.

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