Where your DNA places you among other people, and the studies behind it.
Not tailored to your result, and not medical advice
Quit or Avoid Smoking: The FEV1/FVC ratio falls when the volume blown out in the first second declines faster than the total volume exhaled, and tobacco smoke is the best documented driver of that. A systematic review of longitudinal studies found continuing smokers lost about 40 mL of FEV1 a year, against about 29 mL a year in never smokers, while people who had already stopped declined at roughly the never-smoker rate (27.6 mL a year). The review measured rates of decline rather than recovery, so the realistic benefit of stopping is halting the excess loss rather than regaining what has already gone. BMC Medicine (PMC)
Control Workplace Dust and Fumes: Workplace exposure to vapours, gases, dusts and fumes is estimated to account for about 14% of COPD in the general population, and about 31% in the studies restricted to non-smokers. The exposures with the strongest evidence are inorganic dusts such as coal, silica and cement, organic dust in farming, textile and paper mill work, welding fumes, and irritant gases and cleaning agents. Extraction, ventilation and the respiratory protection supplied for a job are the parts of that exposure a worker can act on directly. Respirology (PMC)
Clear Smoke From Indoor Air: Tobacco smoke accounts for 50 to 90% of indoor particulate matter in high-income countries, and self-reported wood smoke exposure has been associated with higher odds of airflow obstruction (OR 1.96) and chronic bronchitis (OR 1.64). Parental smoking during childhood is one of the identified determinants of a low lung function trajectory that persists into adulthood. In a randomised trial cited by the same review, homes given a portable air cleaner cut household PM2.5 by about 63%, though the long-term health benefits of those devices are still being established. Clinics in Chest Medicine (PMC)
Stay Physically Active: In a Copenhagen population cohort of 6,790 adults followed for about a decade, smokers with moderate or high physical activity lost less FEV1 per year than the least active smokers (about 2.6 and 4.8 mL a year less respectively) and had lower odds of developing COPD (OR 0.77). The effect is modest and observational, and it does not cancel out the smoking itself. National guidance for adults is around 150 minutes of moderate activity a week. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (PubMed)
Know the Limits of Prevention: Roughly half of COPD cases come not from unusually fast decline but from a low maximum FEV1 reached in early adulthood, where the substantial damage most likely took place during childhood and adolescence or even before birth. That ceiling is not something adult behavior can raise, and some fall in the ratio with age is normal, which is the honest limit of any lifestyle list for this trait. What behavior still influences is the rate of loss from that starting point. Persistent breathlessness, cough, wheeze or chronic sputum is worth raising with a clinician, who can read a spirometry result in context. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine (PMC)
How much of this is genetic?
Genetics explains 35% of why people differ in this trait. The rest is environment, daily habits and chance.
Heritability estimate: Twin and family studies of spirometry lung function
Background and further reading
FEV1/FVC is a lung-function measure taken during spirometry, a simple breathing test. FEV1 (forced expiratory volume in one second) is how much air you can forcibly exhale in the first second of a big breath out, and FVC (forced vital capacity) is the total amount you can exhale. The ratio of the two describes how freely air leaves the airways. A higher ratio means air moves out relatively unobstructed, while a lower ratio indicates that airflow is more limited. Clinicians use the FEV1/FVC ratio as the primary marker of obstructive airway patterns, and a persistently reduced ratio is one of the defining features of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Genetic Basis: Lung function is a heritable, highly polygenic trait shaped by many common variants of small effect, each nudging the ratio slightly higher or lower. Large genome-wide association studies of hundreds of thousands of people have identified well over a hundred genetic signals for lung function measures. Genes near these signals point to airway and lung development and tissue-remodeling pathways, including HHIP, FAM13A, AGER, GSTCD, TNS1, HTR4, and the 15q25 nicotinic-receptor region. A polygenic score sums up many of these small contributions to estimate where your inherited baseline sits relative to others.
Environmental Factors: Genetics sets a baseline, but the FEV1/FVC ratio is strongly modified by environment and behavior. Cigarette smoke is by far the most important influence, accelerating the loss of airflow over a lifetime, and long-term exposure to air pollution, occupational dusts, and fumes also lowers the ratio. Early-life factors such as prematurity, childhood respiratory infections, and secondhand smoke shape the peak lung function a person reaches in early adulthood. Because these exposures are largely modifiable, they typically matter more for day-to-day breathing than inherited tendency alone.
The published research behind your score, and the variants it draws on.
11 published scores from 4 studies
The FEV1/FVC ratio score combines 11 polygenic scores drawn from 4 published studies.
These traits are influenced by some of the same genes and variants as this one
Lean Body Mass: The fat-free portion of your body: mostly muscle, bone, organs, and water.
Content updated August 2026.
ReadYourDNA provides educational interpretation of DNA data you already have. It is not diagnostic, not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Talk to a clinician before acting on any result.
Raw DNA Data Reports for 23andMe & AncestryDNA · About ReadYourDNA · FAQ · Methodology & Science · Pricing · Support and complaints · Legal & Contact · Health Traits · Pharmacogenomics · Carrier Status · Variant Explorer · The Human Karyotype · Privacy Policy · Terms of Service · Accessibility · Consumer Health Data Privacy · Your Privacy Choices · Editorial Standards · Your Data, Checkable · Sample Report · ReadYourDNA and Promethease compared · What is inside a 23andMe raw data file · What is inside an AncestryDNA raw data file · What a chatbot can and cannot do with your raw DNA file · Where a raw DNA file can still be uploaded in 2026
Written, maintained and operated by Martin Pechhacker, sole proprietor, Vienna, Austria. Trade register GISA 40064420. support@readyourdna.com