Untargeted Screening of Environmental and Endogenous Metabolites and Risk of Incident COPD: A Prospective Study in Three European Populations

Lower plasma butyrylcarnitine levels are linked to higher incident COPD risk in never-smokers, independent of tobacco exposure, in three European cohorts with 4–16 years follow-up.

• Why it matters: COPD risk biology beyond smoking and air pollution is not well mapped, and large prospective exposome-plus-metabolome studies before onset are scarce.
• What they did: In a nested case-control design across Doetinchem, KORA, and SAPALDIA, untargeted LC- and GC-HRMS profiled 1473 plasma samples; COPD was defined by pre-bronchodilation FEV1/FVC < 0.7 at follow-up, and conditional logistic regression tested each feature with FDR control.
• The result: Nicotine and cotinine intensities were associated with COPD incidence at FDR 10%, and temporally stable metabolites identified phenyl N-methylcarbamate as a predictor, while most PAHs and pesticides were not significant at stringent thresholds.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.