Why Every Parent Should Learn the Language of Biology Before Chronic Disease Has a Name

Written by Haifa Hamdi, Scientist, Nutritionist, and Author

Dr. Haifa Hamdi is a research scientist, holistic nutritionist, and author whose work focuses on cancer, autoimmune diseases, and digestive health. She is passionate about helping families embrace healthier lifestyles and inspiring a world where health is joyful and empowering.

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Long before a diagnosis is made, parents may notice subtle changes in a child’s appetite, energy, digestion, or behaviour. Drawing on her experience as both an immunology scientist and a mother, the author explores how careful observation, scientific knowledge, and partnership with healthcare professionals can help families better understand the body’s quiet signals.

“Science helps us understand biology. Parents often witness it long before medicine gives it a name.”

Before the diagnosis

Having lived and worked across different countries, I have learned that healthcare systems differ, universities teach differently, medical technologies continue to evolve, and cultures often approach health in unique ways. Yet there is one language that remains universal: biology. Every human body speaks it, and every child lives it. Parents are often the first to witness its quietest conversations, long before those observations reach the clinic.

One of the greatest strengths of epidemiology is its ability to reveal patterns long before biology fully explains them. As an immunology scientist, I have always been fascinated by those patterns because they often become the first clues that something important is unfolding.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder whether the body always knows the story before we do. The question is not whether the body communicates; it is whether we recognize its language.

As an immunology scientist, I have spent much of my career studying how inflammatory diseases develop and how the immune system responds to the world around us. Yet one of the most important lessons I have learned about biology did not come from a laboratory, a scientific publication, or a research conference. It came from my son.

When he was four years old, I had no reason to believe our family was beginning a journey toward pediatric inflammatory bowel disease. Nothing dramatic happened. There was no emergency, no sudden collapse, and no single event that made us believe something serious was unfolding. Life looked like it does for countless young families: busy school mornings, birthday parties, family dinners, and the beautiful unpredictability of childhood.

Only years later did I realize that another story had been unfolding quietly in parallel. The body had already begun the conversation. I simply was not yet fluent in its language.

Breakfast was often the first clue, although I did not know it at the time. Almost every morning became a gentle negotiation. My son wanted to postpone eating for as long as possible. It was more than ordinary childhood pickiness. Certain food textures seemed almost impossible for him to tolerate, and meals that should have been uneventful sometimes became surprisingly difficult.

One family gathering has remained with me over the years. A family member, wanting only to encourage him, gently insisted that he try a small piece of omelet. Even before it reached his mouth, I could see from his facial expression that the smell alone seemed unbearable. He hesitated, took a small bite, and began chewing. Within seconds, his eyes filled with discomfort. He gagged and nearly vomited.

Like any parent, I searched for familiar explanations. Perhaps he simply disliked eggs. Perhaps he was unusually sensitive to certain textures. Perhaps this was just another childhood phase that would disappear with time.

Looking back, I want to be very careful not to suggest that this experience pointed directly to inflammatory bowel disease. It did not. Most children who avoid particular foods, dislike certain textures, or refuse breakfast will never develop IBD. These observations have many possible explanations, most of them entirely unrelated to chronic illness.

What mattered was not this moment alone, but the pattern that gradually emerged over time. Around that same period, I noticed something else. Occasionally, after eating, a small bump would appear high on his abdomen, just beneath the lower edge of his rib cage. It would disappear as quickly as it appeared, making it easy to dismiss. I mentioned it during routine medical visits, but nothing concerning was identified.

Life moved on. Still, something quietly unsettled me, although I could not explain why. He was too young to describe what he was feeling. He could not explain nausea or discomfort, nor could he tell me that eating sometimes felt different. Children often lack the vocabulary to describe what their bodies are experiencing, but they communicate in other ways.

Looking back today, I remember his eyes more than anything else. I remember the hesitation before meals, his facial expressions, and the unpredictability of his appetite. Some days, he seemed genuinely hungry and ate with enthusiasm. On other days, he wanted to postpone breakfast, showed little interest in food, or quietly pushed his plate away after only a few bites.

At the time, none of these moments seemed extraordinary. Children go through phases, their appetites fluctuate, and parents naturally look for simple explanations. Yet looking back, I sometimes wonder whether those seemingly unrelated moments were small pieces of a larger biological story that neither of us could yet understand.

He was only four years old. He could not tell me that something felt different inside his body. But today, I often find myself wondering whether, in the only way he knew how, his body was already trying to communicate, almost as if it were quietly saying, “Please... check me.”

Years passed, and like many children, he continued to grow, play, laugh, and enjoy what appeared to be a healthy childhood. One of the remarkable characteristics of children is their extraordinary ability to adapt. Their bodies work tirelessly to maintain balance, often compensating for far longer than we realize.

That resilience is one of childhood’s greatest gifts. Occasionally, however, it can also delay our recognition that something more persistent may be developing.

Gradually, I began noticing other subtle changes. From time to time, I saw pieces of undigested food in his stool. Again, this observation alone meant very little. Digestive changes in children are common and usually have simple explanations.

Still, something prompted me to call my mother in Tunisia. I described everything I had been observing. There was a brief silence before she answered. “Benti...” In Tunisia, benti literally means “my daughter,” but spoken that way, it carries much more than a simple translation. It conveys concern, affection, protection, and a quiet sense of urgency that every Tunisian child immediately understands.

She paused before saying softly, “This needs a very strict diet.” From that day forward, she called me regularly, and every conversation began with the same question: “How is he today?”

As our conversations continued, memories I had almost forgotten slowly resurfaced. Two earlier episodes of unexpected bathroom urgency, which had once seemed isolated and insignificant, suddenly took on a different meaning as his bowel habits gradually changed.

Around the same time, I realized that he seemed to catch colds more frequently than many children his age. He also experienced episodes of shortness of breath that prompted consultations with several physicians, yet every evaluation was reassuring, and no clear explanation was found. Looking back, I cannot say whether these observations were related to what would later unfold. They may have been entirely unrelated. What they did contribute to, however, was a growing awareness that I was observing a succession of small changes rather than a single isolated event.

Individually, none of these observations seemed remarkable; together, they formed a pattern. That realization changed me profoundly. I stopped asking only, “What disease is this?”

Instead, I found myself asking a different question, “What was my son’s body trying to tell us long before medicine finally had a name for it?”

That question has guided my scientific thinking ever since, not because every pattern leads to disease or every symptom has hidden significance, but because biology rarely changes without leaving traces.

As scientists, we are trained to recognize patterns before drawing conclusions. Perhaps families can learn to do the same, not to diagnose disease, but to become thoughtful observers of the biological story unfolding in everyday life.

For thousands of years, families learned through observation. They noticed changes in appetite, sleep, digestion, energy, mood, and recovery without understanding cytokines, microbiota, genetics, or immunology. Modern medicine has transformed our ability to diagnose disease, and those advances continue to save countless lives. Yet I sometimes wonder whether, in becoming increasingly sophisticated scientifically, we have also become less attentive to the quiet biological conversations taking place around us every day.

My hope is not to return to the past. It is to move forward by reconnecting modern science with careful observation and recognizing that one strengthens the other. Perhaps the future of prevention begins not only with better technology, but also with learning to recognize the language of biology long before disease finally has a name.

Learning to read the body

As I reflected on my son’s journey, I gradually realized that the greatest lesson had very little to do with inflammatory bowel disease itself. It had everything to do with the way we understand biology.

For years, I had studied the immune system through the lens of science. I understood inflammatory pathways, immune regulation, and the remarkable complexity of the human body. Yet becoming a mother taught me something equally important: biology is not confined to laboratories, hospitals, or scientific journals. It accompanies us every day, quietly responding to everything we experience.

The body is constantly adapting to food, sleep, movement, infections, emotions, stress, and the environment around us. It is never passive. Every hour, countless biological processes work together to maintain balance, responding to challenges long before we become consciously aware of them.

Perhaps this is why I now see one of the greatest paradoxes of modern life differently. Never before have we understood so much about the human body. We can sequence genomes, analyze the microbiome, measure inflammatory markers with extraordinary precision, and develop therapies that would have seemed unimaginable only a generation ago.

Modern medicine continues to achieve remarkable things, and as a research scientist, I deeply admire the progress that has transformed countless lives. Yet despite this extraordinary knowledge, many families still feel disconnected from the biology unfolding within their own homes.

Somewhere along the way, biology became something we associated with laboratories rather than everyday life. For most of human history, observation was one of humanity’s greatest survival skills. Parents noticed when a child suddenly lost interest in food, when sleep became restless, when energy quietly declined, or when recovery after illness seemed unusually slow. They did not understand cytokines, microbiota, or molecular immunology, but they recognized that the body was constantly responding to its environment.

Today, science helps us understand why many of those changes occur. We know that nutrition influences metabolism, immune regulation, and the trillions of microorganisms that live within us. We understand that stress affects hormonal pathways, that sleep contributes to immune function, and that early life experiences can influence health far beyond childhood. We also know that chronic diseases rarely develop because of a single event. More often, they emerge through the cumulative interaction of genetics, environment, lifestyle, and time.

Science has given us extraordinary answers. The challenge now is helping those answers become part of everyday family life. Research papers do not prepare breakfast. Scientific discoveries do not sit around the dinner table. Medical journals do not notice when a lunchbox comes home untouched three days in a row. But families do.

That realization changed the way I think about prevention. For many years, prevention has been presented as a list of recommendations: eat better, exercise more, sleep longer, and reduce stress. While each of these matters, I have come to believe that prevention begins even earlier.

It begins with paying attention, not through anxiety or constant vigilance, but through genuine curiosity. Curiosity invites us to observe before we interpret, to notice before we conclude, and to ask thoughtful questions rather than rushing toward answers.

In many ways, it resembles the work of a scientist. A researcher does not begin an experiment already convinced of the outcome. Instead, observations are gathered patiently, patterns are explored, hypotheses are considered, and conclusions are reached only after enough evidence has accumulated. I believe families can adopt a similar mindset. The goal is not to search for disease in every symptom, but to recognize when a collection of seemingly ordinary observations deserves a thoughtful conversation with a healthcare professional.

As both a scientist and a mother, I have learned that the most meaningful observations rarely occur during medical appointments. They emerge in the ordinary rhythm of family life: around the breakfast table, during bedtime routines, on family vacations, in conversations after school, or in the quiet moments when a child says very little yet somehow communicates a great deal.

Individually, those moments may appear insignificant. Together, they sometimes become part of a larger biological story. Most patterns ultimately prove to have simple explanations. Occasionally, however, they point toward something that deserves closer attention. Learning to recognize the difference begins not with certainty, but with careful observation guided by curiosity, humility, and science.

When viewed together over time, these observations may reveal patterns worth discussing with trusted healthcare professionals. Perhaps this is where the future of prevention truly begins, not by asking families to become physicians, but by helping them become more attentive observers of the extraordinary biology unfolding in everyday life.

Technology has transformed medicine in remarkable ways, and it will continue to do so. My hope is that it will also inspire us to reconnect with something equally valuable: the ability to notice, to question thoughtfully, and to appreciate that the body is constantly communicating, even when its language is quiet.

The goal is not to replace science, but to allow science and observation to strengthen one another. When they do, families become more confident, healthcare professionals gain richer context, and children benefit from a partnership built on both knowledge and understanding.

Perhaps one of the greatest opportunities we have is not simply to advance medicine, but to become better listeners to the remarkable language of biology that has been with us all along.

The pattern before the diagnosis

When I look back today, what strikes me most is not any single observation, but the pattern they eventually formed.

None of those moments seemed extraordinary on their own. A child delaying breakfast. A sensitivity to certain food textures. A small bump that appeared briefly after meals. Occasional digestive changes. Episodes of bathroom urgency separated by months. Had I looked at each of those experiences in isolation, I would probably have forgotten them.

Together, however, they told a different story. That realization has profoundly influenced the way I now think about health. Biology rarely reveals itself through a single event. More often, it unfolds gradually, allowing seemingly unrelated observations to accumulate until a larger picture begins to emerge.

As scientists, we rarely draw conclusions from a single experiment. We look for reproducibility, consistency, and patterns across multiple observations before reaching meaningful conclusions. I have often wondered whether families can approach everyday life in a similar way, not by trying to diagnose disease or becoming anxious each time something changes, but by recognizing that persistent patterns deserve thoughtful attention and, when appropriate, a conversation with trusted healthcare professionals.

I often wonder how our conversations about prevention might change if we shifted our attention away from isolated symptoms and toward understanding patterns.

Instead of asking, “What is wrong today?” we might also ask, “What has been changing over the past several months?” Those questions are fundamentally different. The first seeks an immediate answer. The second seeks understanding.

One of the greatest lessons motherhood has taught me is that children are constantly communicating, even when they have not yet developed the vocabulary to explain what they are experiencing. A younger child may not be able to describe nausea, early satiety, fatigue, or abdominal discomfort. Instead, those experiences may quietly influence behaviors. A child may begin delaying breakfast, avoiding certain textures, eating less enthusiastically, becoming unusually tired, or wanting to stop playing earlier than usual.

Each of those observations has many possible explanations. Most are entirely unrelated to chronic disease. That is precisely why context matters.

The biological story is rarely found in a single moment. It emerges through the relationship between many observations made over time, each contributing a small piece to a much larger picture. It is often only in retrospect that those seemingly unrelated moments begin to make sense.

Perhaps this is why I believe parents occupy such an important place in prevention. Not because they know more medicine than healthcare professionals, but because they know their child. They recognize what is typical, what feels different, and what has quietly changed. They experience everyday life in ways that no consultation lasting twenty or thirty minutes can fully capture.

That perspective is not a substitute for medical expertise. It is an invaluable complement to it.

When parents bring thoughtful observations to healthcare professionals, and clinicians combine those observations with scientific knowledge, diagnostic tools, and clinical experience, the biological story becomes clearer. In my view, this partnership represents one of the greatest strengths of modern medicine, not because either perspective is sufficient on its own, but because each completes the other.

This is also why I have become increasingly convinced that prevention begins long before treatment becomes necessary. I have come to believe that prevention begins by paying attention, not obsessively or fearfully, but with the quiet respect that recognizes that the body rarely changes without a reason, even when that reason ultimately proves to be temporary or entirely unrelated to serious illness.

Observation is not the destination. It is the beginning of a conversation that families and healthcare professionals are uniquely positioned to have together. Perhaps that conversation is one of the most powerful tools we possess for protecting children’s health long before disease reaches a crisis.

A different conversation about children’s health

People often ask me what changed after my son’s diagnosis. Many expect me to speak first about medications, nutrition, hospital visits, or research. Those became important parts of our family’s journey, and I remain deeply grateful for the remarkable advances in modern medicine that continue to improve the lives of children living with chronic diseases.

Yet if I am honest, the greatest change happened somewhere else. It changed the way I think. Before my son was diagnosed, I viewed prevention primarily through the lens of science. After his diagnosis, I began to understand prevention through the lens of everyday life. I came to appreciate that health is not built only in hospitals or research laboratories. It is also shaped around breakfast tables, during family dinners, on school mornings, and in the countless ordinary moments that quietly define childhood.

That realization transformed the questions I ask. Instead of asking only, “What disease does this child have?” I also began asking, “What has this child’s biology been trying to tell us?”

To me, these questions have never competed with one another. A diagnosis helps us identify disease; understanding helps us appreciate the biological story that often begins long before medicine is able to give that disease a name. Children deserve both.

Throughout my scientific career, I have had the privilege of working alongside outstanding researchers and contributing to projects dedicated to understanding the immune system and developing better therapies. Those experiences strengthened my confidence in science. Motherhood strengthened my confidence in observation. Together, they reshaped the way I understand prevention.

I no longer see science and observation as separate worlds. Scientific discoveries help us understand biology, while families experience biology every single day. Healthcare professionals bring clinical expertise, scientific knowledge, and the diagnostic tools needed to interpret what those observations may mean. Parents contribute something equally valuable: the lived experience of knowing their child. When these perspectives come together, we move beyond simply treating disease and begin building a culture of prevention grounded in partnership, trust, and mutual understanding.

This is the future I hope we continue to build: a future in which parents feel comfortable saying, “Something has changed. I cannot explain exactly what it is, but I know my child, and I think it deserves a conversation.” It is also a future in which those observations are welcomed, explored, and thoughtfully integrated into medical care, allowing science and everyday life to strengthen one another rather than exist in separate worlds.

My mission extends beyond helping families navigate pediatric inflammatory bowel disease. It is to contribute to a future where children grow up in a world that values prevention as deeply as treatment, recognizes the importance of early biological changes, and equips families with the confidence to become informed partners in protecting their children’s health.

Every child deserves access to excellent medicine. Equally important, every child deserves adults who understand that paying attention, asking thoughtful questions, and working in partnership with healthcare professionals are among the most powerful ways we can support lifelong health.

There is no universal longevity diet, no single supplement, no perfect protocol, and certainly no magic solution that works for everyone because human biology has never been the same for everyone. Prevention, therefore, cannot be reduced to a checklist. It begins by understanding the individual child standing in front of us and recognizing that health is shaped by a unique interaction of genetics, environment, lifestyle, and lived experience.

Perhaps one of the greatest gifts we can offer the next generation is not simply the promise of longer lives, but the opportunity to understand the remarkable biology they carry within them, to respect it, to care for it, and to recognize that health is built through thousands of biological conversations taking place every single day.

As scientists, clinicians, educators, and parents, we each contribute a different perspective to that conversation. When we choose to listen together, children benefit.

The body leaves clues, but it is through science, thoughtful observation, and genuine partnership that we begin to understand what those clues may be telling us.

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Read more from Haifa Hamdi

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Haifa Hamdi, Scientist, Nutritionist, and Author

Dr. Haifa Hamdi is a research scientist, holistic nutritionist, and author dedicated to advancing health and wellness. After earning her Ph.D. in Immunology, she built an international career across Europe and North America, contributing to the development of cell therapy protocols to treat cancer and autoimmune disease patients. Her research includes more than 15 peer-reviewed scientific publications, with expertise in lung cancer therapies, immune tolerance, and innovative approaches to inflammatory and infectious diseases. She is also collaborating on new strategies for managing and treating inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Her mission: to inspire a world where health is seen not as a burden, but as a joyful and empowering journey.