A new study suggests that testing lung function earlier in life could help find people at risk of developing serious lung diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
This early testing could help doctors step in sooner with treatments that might slow the disease and improve lives.
The study was published in the September 2025 issue of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases: Journal of the COPD Foundation.
COPD is a group of diseases that includes emphysema and chronic bronchitis. It can be caused by breathing in harmful irritants such as smoke, air pollution, or even due to genetic factors. About 30 million people in the United States are estimated to have COPD, but only half of them know it.
Doctors use a simple breathing test called spirometry to check lung function. This test measures how much air a person can blow out after taking a deep breath (called forced vital capacity or FVC), and how much air they can blow out in the first second (called FEV1).
These numbers help doctors know if someone has lung disease and how serious it might be. Spirometry is a helpful tool to find early signs of breathing problems, but it’s not used often enough in younger people.
In this study, researchers looked at whether lung function in middle-aged people who had smoked at some point in their lives could predict other health problems and the risk of dying later on.
They used data from a long-term project called the Lovelace Smokers’ Cohort, which included 830 people between the ages of 40 and 60 who had smoked but did not have signs of lung disease at the beginning of the study.
Of those, 87 people were followed for 17 years. The group was split into two categories based on their lung function—either high or low. The researchers found that people with lower lung function were more likely to die from any cause and had worse overall health and quality of life—even if they had quit smoking.
The results show that low lung function is an important warning sign. Even in people who don’t yet show signs of COPD, poor lung function could mean a higher risk for health problems in the future.
Dr. Yohannes Tesfaigzi from Mass General Hospital, one of the authors of the study, said that spirometry is a simple and useful way to find people with poor lung health early on. He added that this is especially important for people with a history of smoking.
If doctors can find these at-risk individuals sooner, they can offer treatments like programs to help people stop smoking. These steps could help slow the damage to their lungs and improve their long-term health.
The study highlights how important it is to take care of lung health early. With a quick and easy test like spirometry, doctors may be able to help many more people avoid serious problems down the line.
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