In 2009, Tina Turner said goodbye to the stage, also to her audience in Munich. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach now spoke about her death. © Pekka Sakki/dpa Oliver Berg/dpa
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach thanked rock legend Tina Turner on Twitter for her music and recalled the singer's fight against homeopathy.
Berlin - Tina Turner was one of the most successful singers in the world with 200 million records sold - on Wednesday (May 24), the rock legend died of natural causes after a long illness. For years, Turner had battled colon cancer and kidney failure.
Before her death, she campaigned against homeopathy, the supposed effectiveness of which she herself had fallen for in the past. The belief in the wrong treatment had destroyed her kidneys. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) took up the issue in a tweet on Thursday.
Karl Lauterbach on Tina Turner's warning against homeopathy: "Regretted the mistake"
Federal Health Minister Lauterbach thanked Tina Turner on Twitter on Wednesday "for the good hours, especially at parties, but also long car rides in the early 80s." Joie de vivre is contagious, the minister continued, "it was the proof". The physician also took the death of the rock legend as an opportunity to recall her fight against homeopathy.
"Impressive description by Tina Turner of how homeopathy destroyed her kidney," Lauterbach wrote, referring to a description of the singer about the reasons for her kidney failure, which was published on the information portal Show your kidneys love. "Dialysis came because she thought high blood pressure could be treated with homeopathy," Lauterbach said, summarizing Turner's warning. "Stroke and dialysis followed. She regretted the mistake afterwards and warned me."
Tina Turner warned against homeopathy: "Fight for cure is fight for accurate information"
Tina Turner's husband, Erwin, donated a kidney to her in 2017 to save her life. "The fight for healing is always a fight for accurate information," Turner warned of her death in her post on Show your kidneys love. "My kidneys are a victim of the fact that I denied that my high blood pressure needed treatment with conventional medicine," says the singer about her decision to treat with homeopathic methods. She had exposed herself to great danger because she refused to accept reality. She didn't want to admit that she would need medication every day for the rest of her life.
On homeopathy: "No effect beyond the placebo effect"
There are several reasons why people believe in homeopathy. Many alternative treatments take a lot of time for patients and take a holistic approach that also includes mental and emotional well-being. Likewise, doubts about conventional medicine can be a reason for deciding on a supposedly "natural" treatment. However, homeopathy has not been scientifically proven. According to the Independent Patient Counseling Germany (UPD), the effectiveness of homeopathy has been investigated in many scientific studies. "The consensus finding is that homeopathy has no effect beyond a placebo effect," the organization's website says. Active ingredients are diluted to such an extent that no molecules are detectable, but they are still supposed to work via "the memory of water". Critics have long been calling for the abolition of the classification of globules as "medicines" in Germany.
As early as 1978, Turner was diagnosed with high blood pressure, but did not think much about it, the singer wrote on the info portal. "After I suffered a stroke in 2009 due to my poorly controlled high blood pressure, I struggled to get back on my feet," Turner describes her medical history. It was then that she learned for the first time that her kidneys had lost 35 percent of their function.
She had developed a "fatal aversion" to the pills she had to take daily to control her high blood pressure. At the time, a friend recommended an alternative treatment, so she replaced her conventional medication with homeopathic remedies – without informing her doctor. At the next routine check-up, her kidney values had deteriorated enormously. The singer's life was in danger.
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In2009, Tina Turner said goodbye to the stage, including her audience in Munich. Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach now spoke about her death. © Pekka Sakki/dpa Oliver Berg/dpa
Tina Turner described the beginning of dialysis and described kidney failure as a "silent killer"
"Thanks to my naivety, I had reached the point where it was a matter of life and death," the singer admitted. "If I had known the risk I was taking, I would never have chosen alternative medicine." The consequences were irreversible. In order to survive, she had to start dialysis. "It was my only option, but it was depressing to be hooked up to a machine for hours," Turner said of her life situation at the time.
She was not aware that chronic kidney failure was called a "silent killer" because the symptoms only become noticeable when 80 percent of the kidney tissue was destroyed, Turner said of her ignorance at the time and emphasized the importance of conventional medicine: "I rely on several prescriptions and take great care to follow the instructions of my doctors to the letter. Because I know I can trust them and their therapies."
In 2017, Turner had received a kidney transplant from her husband, which saved her life. For her 80th birthday in November 2019, the singer addressed her fans with a short video. "I look great, I feel good," she said to the camera at the time, laughing. She has had some very serious illnesses, which is now like a second chance at life. She died on Wednesday at the age of 83 in her home in Küsnacht near Zurich.