"...“Based on the current literature we were expecting reduced oxygen consumption in the mitochondria, which leads to a build up of toxic byproducts, but what we saw was the exact opposite,” he said. “We were able to show the mitochondria were perfectly normal but were working four times as hard, which also leads to increased production of poisonous byproducts to occur.”
...

Fisher said so far, the blood test had been trialled on a small test group ..., and had reliably detected the hyperactive mitochondria of Parkinson’s patients.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2...lier-treatment

(I find it more than interesting that the mitochondria in PD patients showed a hypermetabolic state, not a hypo state! The mitochondria are over preforming not underperforming.)

There is a press release from La Trobe about this here; http://www.latrobe.edu.au/news/artic...for-parkinsons.

I can't find any technical details about what they actually measured in terms of "hyperactive mitochondria".

In my view it is encouraging but a limitation of it is that it only seems to apply to people who have already been diagnosed with PD so in that sense it is confirmatory. Of course this could lead to new therapeutic insights.

A longitudinal study would be valuable - seeing if what they have measured is predictive of PD in a large cohort before it has been diagnosed by other methods though this would take some time and would be expensive.