Exposure to nitrogen oxides was associated with Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) in a study on older adults part of the MESA Air project at the University of Washington. ILD is a group of chronic lung diseases characterized by pulmonary inflammation and fibrosis, affecting about 0.5% of older adults, and generally diagnosed late in the disease development. Taking advantage of the CT scans performed on 5495 older adults in the MESA Air cohort, investigators were able to observe early stages of the disease before symptoms were apparent, and related them to exposures to air pollutants. The odds of abnormalities increased by 1.77 times per every 40 ppb increase of nitrogen oxides (NOx). Exposure to fine particles (PM2.5), NOx and NO2 concentrations showed some association with the progression of attenuation abnormalities, though these varied by ethnicity. The study provides an early indication that air pollution could be a risk factor for ILD, but definitive evidence will require additional analyses.