A new study made by a 14-year-old student warns users of iPad 2 with pacemakers not to place the tablet too close to their chest or risk their lives.

It is because of the magnetic interference from the device which could change the settings and possibly even deactive the technology of an implantable cardioverter defibrillators or pacemakers. iPad 2s have magnets to help secure the cover to the tablet.

The magnets imbedded in the Apple device and its Smart Cover could cause electromagnetic interference that could disrupt a cardiac rhythm device.

Heart devices have specialised magnets imbedded that allow doctors to routinely adjust the settings and suspend the device's ability to stop sudden rapid heart rates such as tachycardia and fibrillation.

Owners of iPad 2 devices place their lives at risk if they fall asleep with the tablet on their chest. The study said 30 per cent of the study participants experienced interference with their pacemakers when the iPad 2 was placed on that body area. If the tablet was placed at a normal reading distance from the chest, there was no electromagnetic interference.

Heavier people who have more fat on their chest area have more protection from electromagnetic interference, said Gianna Chien, the lead author of the study. Ms Chien, a high school freshman, presented the results of her findings on Thursday at the yearly meeting of the Heart Rhythm Society in Denver.

Her father, Dr Walter Chien, a heart doctor with the Central Valley Arrhythmia in Stockton, California, helped her with patient testing.

Besides the iPad 2, other devices such as mobile phones and magnetic resonance imaging machines could also affect cardiac rhythm devices but Ms Chien did not include these gadgets in her study.

She had published the results of her study in the Journal of Neurosurgery Pediatrics in 2012 which also found the iPad 2 could also interfere with settings of magnetically programmable shunt devices in the brain if it is held within two inches of the devices.

It happened in the case of a 4-month-old girl with hydrocephalus who developed shunt malfunction due to the changed setting of the magnetically programmable valve that regulates the flow of cerebrospinal fluid out of the brain cavity. They observed the malfunction because the mother of the girl was using an iPad 2 while holding her sick child.

"The real problem is that you don't even know; there is no trigger, no light goes off (to alert you)," US Health News quoted Dr Salvatore Insinga, a neurosurgeon at the Cushing Neuroscience Institute in New York.

"With all the tech devices people are using now and all the implanted things in patients, this is more of an issue now," he added.

Ms Chien's study has 27 patients who were at least 50 years old and had implantable cardiac defibrillators, pacemakers or loop recorders. Almost 19 per cent of the patients with defibrillators experienced device interference from the iPad 2, but those with pacemakers or loop recorder observed no interference.

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