A sample of distant ($z>0.4$) luminous infrared galaxies (LIRGs) selected from ISOCAM deep survey fields (CFRS, UDSR, UDSF) have been studied on the basis of their high-quality optical spectra from VLT/FORS2 (R=5Å). Robust estimates of dust extinction can be considered via the energy balance between the infrared and H$\beta$ luminosities, after correcting the underlying Balmer absorption properly. Oxygen abundances [12+log(O/H)] in the interstellar medium of the sample galaxies estimated from the “strong-line” method show a range from 8.36 to 8.93, with a median value of 8.67, which is 0.5 lower than that of local bright disks (i.e. $L^*$) at the given magnitude. The timescale to double the stellar masses of such LIRGs can be very short, 0.1-1 Gyr. A significant fraction of distant large disks are indeed LIRGs. Such massive disks could have formed $\sim50$% of their metals and stellar masses since $z\sim1$.