Warning: Trendy cooking hobs can stop pacemakers

THEY are a popular kitchen gadget advertised in high street stores as being efficient and extra safe.

But trendy induction cooking hobs pose a potentially fatal threat to people fitted with pacemakers and insulin pumps.

Magnets in the hobs can prevent nearby medical equipment from working properly – but warnings about the risks are often buried so deep in the instruction manuals that users can be unaware of their dangers.

Manufacturers and retailers are now being urged to print health warnings on the packaging and on websites where they are sold.

Induction hobs are advertised as being ‘more efficient’ than traditional ceramic ones and ‘extra safe’. They work by generating a magnetic field that induces heat on to a pan when it is placed on to the hob.

But those with a pacemaker or devices such as implantable cardioverter-defibrillators should not come close to this kind of magnetism.

Joan Merchant, 70, a retired solicitor, contacted The Mail on Sunday to raise the alarm.

Mrs Merchant, from Inverness, discovered the dangers only after she downloaded an instruction manual. ‘It was about 30 pages long and the only warning was in there,’ she said.

‘There was nothing to warn you on the websites selling the hobs. My brother-in-law has a pacemaker and my son has type 1 diabetes and is about to be fitted with a pump – so this is very relevant to us.’

Lucy Wilkinson, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘Anyone with a pacemaker should keep a distance of at least 60cm when using an induction hob. If they’ve had prolonged close contact with an induction hob, they should go to their pacemaker clinic to make sure the device is still working correctly.’

Dan Howarth, head of care at Diabetes UK, said: ‘We would support very big capital letter warnings.’