Feeling a bit rusty has been given new meaning by ground breaking research by scientists in Austria who found that debilitating illnesses including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's could have their roots in a build-up of iron in the brain.

The average human body actually has between 3 g and 5 g of iron inside, most of it located in the red blood cells, but the scientists also found a link between a build-up of iron in the brains of elderly people and illnesses including specifically in sufferers of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

Scientists in Graz in Styria in Austria say that the iron particles quite literally cause the brain to rust up – leading they believe in the illnesses mostly associated with the elderly.

The scientists started the pioneering project is part of an initiative to look at ways of tackling the illnesses that are ever more prevalent through an ever ageing population.

Together with Stefan Ropele from the Graz medical University and Heinz Krenn from the Institute for Physics at the Karl-Franzens-University in Graz the team believe that the rusting up of the brain plays a significant role in subsequent neurological problems.

Stefan Ropele said: "Small amounts of iron particles are reaching the brain regions and we have found evidence that they can cause symptoms of illness."

Ropele added: "Magnetic Resonance Imagining (MRI) shows a picture of how the brain changes which can be traced back to the iron. We found that in certain areas of the brain there were noticeable changes in the iron content when the patient also suffered from a degenerative illness."

Now the scientists are researching in which connection and in which concentration the metal causes damaging effects.

Krenn was a member of the team who has succeeded in quantifying the iron content in brain samples proving that there is more iron in certain brains than others.

He said: "By taking special cuts out of the brain, brain samples if you like, we were able to measure the amount of iron in various samples from healthy and unhealthy people. We found that in different parts of the brain there were different levels of iron, and in people with illnesses it was particularly apparent that the levels were different."