About the NHS Targeted Lung Health Check (TLHC) Programme

How can eating a balanced diet help my lungs ?

A balanced diet is very important for everybody. The essential nutrients in healthy foods and fluids can help you to feel as fit as you can. This is especially important if you have an existing lung condition as it helps to prevent infections and keep your lungs as healthy as possible.

Eating a balanced diet as well as being active will also help you to maintain a healthy eight. This is really important for your lung health as being overweight can make your breathing more difficult, making it harder for you to be active

Ways to improve your diet:

• Try to replace snacks with fruit and add vegetables to meals where possible. Aim to eat 5 portions a day.
• Choose low fat dairy products, but be careful as these can be high in sugars
• Try to replace eating red meat with more lean meats, including skinless chicken, turkey and fish. You can also have red meat with fat trimmed off, which is healthier
• Choose wholegrain carbohydrates where possible including wholemeal bread, rice and pasta
• Try to lower your salt intake by not adding salt at the table and reducing the amount you add to food when cooking so that you have no more than one teaspoon of salt a day
• Try to drink water regularly throughout the day. Remember that many drinks have sugar in them even when it says 'no added sugar'
• Try to avoid sugar and sugary foods.

You should also try and keep an eye on the amount of alcohol you drink.

Guidelines are now the same for men and women. Both are advised not to regularly drink more than 14 units of alcohol per week.

It's important that you don't save up your units and have these all in one drinking session. Its best to spread this evenly across the week and have regular drink free days.

How do I know if I'm a healthy weight?

To check your body weight you can use body mass index (BMI). Your BMI shows if you are a healthy weight for your height.

Liverpool services that can help:

Fit for me

Find out more about being active with a health condition and find a local provider who can help you find an activity that will benefit your health condition.

Healthwatch

Wellbeing Liverpool is a service designed to help you find activities, groups and organisations that can help you live the life you want to live.

Knowsley services that can help:

Healthy Knowsley

The Healthy Knowsley Service offers a range of advice, support and dedicated programmes to residents who want to improve their, and their families, health and wellbeing such as getting more active, healthy eating, losing weight or stopping smoking.

Healthwatch Knowsley

The staff at Healthwatch can help you to find out more about what information, services and activities are available to help you manage your health needs so that you are one step closer to better lung health.

How can being more active help my lungs?

Being active is one of the best things you can do to take care of your lungs. Even 10 minutes a day can make all the difference!

Not only does it make your lungs feel stronger and help deliver oxygen better throughout your body, it can also help reduce your risk of long-term lung conditions such as Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

Being active can help you control your weight also which can affect your lung function.

Increasing your activity levels can:

• give you more energy
• lower high blood pressure
• strengthen the muscles you use to breathe
• strengthen your heart and improve circulation
• reduce the risk of conditions like arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer
• reduce your risk of falling by improving your strength and balance
• reduce stress levels and help to reduce anxiety and depression

Even if you feel unfit and often get breathless when being active now, it is all about finding what is right for you to begin with. Small amounts of activity such as taking the dog for a walk and gardening can still have a huge impact.

All you need to do is find the right level of physical activity for you to feel the positive effects throughout your life.

How active should I be?

For adults we recommend that you are physically active for 150 minutes (2 hours and 30 minutes) a week. You can break this down into:

150 minutes a week may seem too much if you are not used to being active. Just try your best to be as active as possible and slowly build this up at a steady pace.

How does becoming smokefree help my lungs?

You may think that if you already smoke tobacco cigarettes or other products such as shisha that there is no point in stopping smoking as the damage to your lungs is already done. However, the best thing you can do is stop now and you can still make a difference to your lung health.

You can slow down the damage that smoking causes to your lungs and ease your symptoms.

Useful tips you can try:

1. Think about why you smoke? Why do you want to give up? Write this down so you can remember why you are giving up
2. Remove anything that reminds you of smoking such as ashtrays and lighters
3. Call yourself a non-smoker, soon you will be!
4. Get the support of friends and family by telling them you're dedicated to quitting
5. Keep track of how much money you're saving and plan how you will spend it
6. Prepare for possible withdrawal symptoms and how you will cope
7. Remember cravings only last 2 to 3 minutes so distract yourself and it will be gone before you know it
8. Don't let a slip up stop you. Just put it down to experience and start again
9. Challenge yourself to quit by a certain date and stick to it
10. Avoid other people smoking. This can be as bad as smoking yourself and will make it harder to quit.

Becoming smokefree is not easy, but there are lots of local services available to offer the right support that will help you to quit smoking, this time for good.

Even if you have not been successful before, it's important that you saw the need to try.

Remember, each quit attempt is a step further towards becoming smokefree.

What support is right for you?

There are many support options available with different choices working better for different people.

Nicotine Replacement Therapy

Nicotine replacement therapy (also know as 'NRT'), comes in all shapes and sizes and helps to reduce symptoms so you can give up smoking easily.

You can get patches, gum, nose and mouth sprays, all of which release nicotine into your bloodstream without you needing to smoke.

Other local support options include:

Smokefree Liverpool

A free, confidential Stop Smoking Service which is available to anyone wanting to quit smoking.

Smokefree

Online tools from the NHS including a FREE smokefree quit kit.

Halton Stop Smoking Service

A free, confidential Stop Smoking Service.

Knowsley Stop Smoking Service

Specialist support for Knowsley residents to quit smoking

What signs or symptoms should I look out for?

Recognising the signs of a lung condition early on can be helpful. It means you are more likely to be able to treat it earlier and in more serious cases such as lung cancer, increase chances of survival.

Common symptoms you can look out for:

If you are worried about any of the symptoms above, see your GP as soon as possible.