Photo: ©iStock/Debu Durlav

(06/04/2025) Researchers from the Eastern Colorado VA Health Care System and National Jewish Health showed deployment exposure to dust from sources such as burn pits and diesel exhaust is connected to distal lung disease. Distal lung diseases such as bronchiolitis and emphysema affect the smaller airways and lung tissue, and they can cause symptoms such as difficulty breathing, chronic cough, and wheezing. Using a new microscopy technique they developed on lung biopsies, the researchers showed the lung tissue of Veterans with deployment-related distal lung disease had significantly more pigmentation caused by airborne toxins than healthy controls. The findings implicate dust exposure as a cause of distal lung disease in Veterans deployed to Southwest Asia and Afghanistan. (American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, May 2025)