Zahida Allen’s situation is exactly that: serious. Her father’s death wasn’t just a private family tragedy; it became a public example of how symptoms can be missed, dismissed, or normalised until it’s too late. The timeline she described — repeated GP visits, persistent bowel symptoms, blood in stool, weight loss, fatigue, and still being sent home with laxatives — is the kind of thing that makes families feel utterly powerless. It’s the sort of story that hits close to home for anyone who’s watched a loved one fight for proper medical attention.
Her father, Anhar Miah, died in February 2023 at 62, a year after finally being diagnosed with stage‑four bowel cancer. By the time the scans were done, the disease had already spread. Zahida has been very clear: she believes earlier investigation could have changed the outcome.
This isn’t gossip, it isn’t entertainment — it’s a reminder of how quickly things can escalate when symptoms are brushed aside. And it’s why she’s now pushing hard for people to recognise the signs of bowel cancer and not feel embarrassed talking about them.
What Zahida said about her dad’s long‑term stomach issues being blamed on “a rich diet” is one of the most troubling parts of the story, because it shows how an old explanation can cling on even when the symptoms evolve into something far more dangerous.
For years, he had digestive problems — discomfort, irregular bowel habits — and the assumption was that it was just his food choices. That kind of anchoring is common: once a benign cause is established, it can overshadow new evidence. But in 2021, his symptoms didn’t just continue; they changed. They became sharper, more persistent, more alarming.
Anhar was severely fatigued, rapidly losing weight, suffering week‑long bouts of constipation, and finding blood in his stool — symptoms that clearly signalled a serious underlying bowel condition.
He visited his GP several times, but each time he was simply sent home with laxatives that did nothing to address the severity of his symptoms.
It wasn’t until February 2022, after an A&E visit, multiple scans and a biopsy, that Anhar was finally told he had stage‑four metastatic, incurable, inoperable, terminal bowel cancer.
By this point, Zahida, now 32, said the disease was “just so far gone”, and it had already spread to his abdomen, kidney and stomach.
Speaking about her dad’s illness, she said he was in an insufferable, incomprehensible amount of pain.
Zahida, who also appeared on Ex on the Beach, believes that if her dad’s symptoms had been taken seriously and testing for bowel cancer carried out sooner, more could have been done to prolong — or possibly even save — his life.
Bowel cancer is now a leading cause of death worldwide, and it remains the second most common cause of cancer death in the UK.
People commented that his symptoms had been repeatedly overlooked, and many said the delays in investigating his condition were deeply concerning.
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