A study by the University of Basel presented at the European Respiratory Society Congress in Barcelona, held between 5 and 9 September 2026, found that children with a higher genetic risk of COPD develop less lung capacity between birth and age six, but only when they grow up in areas with high fine particulate pollution.

The research, presented by researcher Carla da Silva Sena of the Basel University Children's Hospital, moves the origin of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to early childhood, according to La Razón. COPD has historically been associated with smoking in adulthood, and this work suggests that part of its foundations is laid during infant lung development. The finding has a direct context in Mexico: in the first half of 2026, the metropolitan area of Monterrey averaged 16.26 micrograms per cubic meter of PM2.5, 23% less than a year earlier, according to state data collected by Publimetro, which also cites a study in Gaceta Médica de México: in 2021, environmental exposure to PM2.5 was associated with 43,064 deaths in the country.

The follow-up included 484 children from the Swiss Basel-Bern Infant Lung Development cohort, which tracks children born between 1999 and 2020, according to Investigación y Desarrollo. Lung function was measured in the first month of life, while the baby sleeps, and at age six with spirometry. The researchers estimated individual exposure to PM2.5 and nitrogen dioxide, and calculated a polygenic risk score for COPD using blood samples. The association appeared only in the most exposed third, with averages of 15.3 micrograms per cubic meter of PM2.5 and 28.3 of NO2; in the least polluted areas the effect was much smaller. The authors note two limitations: the genetic score was built from populations of European ancestry, and the work is a conference abstract that has not yet been peer reviewed.

The team plans to follow the participants into adolescence and adulthood to determine whether those differences in lung function persist or widen, the data point that will define whether early damage translates into COPD decades later.

This article was written with the assistance of artificial intelligence from verified sources and reviewed by a human editor before publication.