Nadiya Hussain has shared an update on her health, months after revealing she has been diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases.
In October, the TV chef, who won the 2015 series of The Great British Bake Off, confirmed her shock diagnosis with fans in an Instagram post after months of being "quite unwell".
In a new interview with Prima, Nadiya opened up about her illness and how she is navigating it going forward.
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"My [autoimmune disease] is a lifelong thing," she said. "It’s something that I will live with forever and it’s something that I will have to deal with forever. But I’m very lucky, because I have really amazing support at home.
"I have people who look out for me and that’s really important," she added. "But my best advice to anyone is to learn to look out for yourself and know when you need to stop."
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In the same interview, Nadiya credits her busy career and the consequences of this as contributing to her diagnosis.
'If I think about how hard I’ve worked over the past nine years, I think that stress and exhaustion is a huge part in my diagnosis of illness that I’ve had over the past year," she said.
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Her diagnosis, coinciding with Nadiya recently turning 40, has additionally led the TV chef to pause for thought and assess what's important in life.
"I’ve really had to think about my purpose and why I’m here and what it is that I’m actually doing as a Muslim woman in the public eye, working in an industry where there aren’t that many, if any, of us," she told the publication.
"I know that I’ve had to work really hard to break those barriers and I still haven’t broken many."
January saw the release of Nadiya's new cookbook Rooza, which explores Islamic cuisine through important dates like Ramadan and Eid. Late last year she returned to screens in a new BBC2 cooking programme Cook Once, Eat Twice.
Emily is an experienced freelance entertainment writer and editor, reporting on all things TV, film, soaps and showbiz. An NCTJ-qualified journalist, with a First Class Honours degree in Journalism from the University of Sussex, Emily is a former Deputy News Editor and Evening News Editor at Digital Spy. She has previously worked at Hello magazine, BBC South News and GoodtoKnow.
A small and big-screen obsessive – with subscriptions to every TV and film service under the sun – Emily knows her movie stars from soap stars, and is always clued up on the latest reality show dumping, just-dropped trailer or off-screen spat. She's interviewed a number of celebrities over the years, with highlights including The Masked Singer host Joel Dommett and GMB's Kate Garraway (who "loved" her trousers).
Emily counts Sharon Horgan and Julia Davis as her TV heroes, and is a loyal Wes Anderson fan. LinkedIn
