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The findings, published in in Nature Communications, suggest it might be possible to arrest the disease using drugs that remove iron from the brain.
"We think that iron is contributing to the disease progression of Alzheimer's disease," says neuroscientist Dr Scott Ayton from the University of Melbourne.
"This is strong evidence to base a clinical trial on lowering iron content in the brain to see if that would impart a cognitive benefit."
Ayton says iron was first implicated in Alzheimer's disease in the 1950s, following post mortem studies showing higher iron levels in the brains of those with the disease.
"But there has been debate for a long period of time whether this is important or whether it's just a coincidence," says Ayton.
To help settle this question, Ayton and colleagues studied the link between iron and Alzheimer's disease in three groups of people: 91 people with normal cognition; 144 people with mild cognitive impairment; and 67 people with Alzheimer's disease.
At the beginning of the study, the researchers measured the iron binding protein, ferritin, in cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the brain, as a proxy for iron levels in the brain.
Over the next seven years they carried out regular cognitive tests and took MRI brain scans to look for degeneration in the brain.
Comment: Another can of cyber worms! As they say: If it is possible, it has already been done!
Biohacking or wetware hacking is the practice of engaging biology with the hacker ethic. It encompasses a wide spectrum of practices and movements one of which are the "grinders" who design and install do-it-yourself body-enhancements such as magnetic implants.
According to Wahle, he put the chip in when he was still employed by the military and it was never detected despite going through scanners every day. Imagine the currently unlimited options...and what the upcoming crack-down will impose on the public-in-general. A probing question, indeed.