Liske Kotzé-Hörstmann

Liske Kotzé-Hörstmann
Stellenbosch University | SUN · Institute of Sport and Exercise Medicine

PhD

About

14
Publications
3,348
Reads
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90
Citations

Publications

Publications (14)
Article
Full-text available
Background: Dyslipidaemia and hypertension care have not been reported in large samples of community-based participants with known diabetes (KD) nor compared with individuals at high risk for diabetes. Objectives: To describe the management and associations of dyslipidaemia and hypertension in adults with KD, newly diagnosed diabetes (NDD) and n...
Article
Full-text available
Current pharmaceutical treatments addressing obesity are plagued by high costs, low efficacy and adverse side effects. Natural extracts are popular alternatives, but evidence for their anti-obesity properties is scant. We assessed the efficacy of a green (minimally-oxidized) Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) extract (GRT) to ameliorate the effects of o...
Article
Full-text available
Diet-induced obesity (DIO) in laboratory rodents can serve as a model with which to study the pathophysiology of obesity, but obesogenic diets (high-sugar and/or high-fat) are often poorly characterised and simplistically aimed at inducing metabolic derangements for the purpose of testing the therapeutic capacity of natural products and other bioac...
Preprint
The effect of a green Rooibos (Aspalathus linearis) extract on metabolic parameters and adipose tissue biology in male Wistar rats fed different obesogenic diets. Globally, obesity places an enormous burden on health care systems due to related co-morbidities such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Current pharmaceutical treatments addressing...
Article
Leaf teas are widely used as a purported treatment for dysregulated glucose homeostasis. The objective of this study was to systematically evaluate the clinical and cellular-metabolic evidence, published between January 2013 and May 2019 and indexed on PubMed, ScienceDirect and Web of Science, supporting the use of leaf teas for this purpose. Fourt...
Chapter
With the dramatic rise in the global prevalence of obesity and lack of success at addressing this public health issue, there is an urgency to develop new tools with which to study obesity and putative weight-loss products. Pre-adipocyte cell lines have been widely used as a model for adipocyte biology and obesity over the past four decades, but the...
Thesis
Full-text available
The global burden of non-communicable diseases (NCD’s) is unacceptably high and disproportionately affects developing countries such as South Africa (SA). Black SA women have a higher prevalence of obesity and a greater associated risk for developing metabolic diseases (such as type 2 diabetes mellitus) than their white counterparts. An improved un...
Article
Full-text available
Black South African women are more insulin resistant and have increased gluteal subcutaneous adipose tissue hypertrophy than white South African women. We tested the hypothesis that adipose tissue hypoxia and extracellular matrix gene expression in gluteal and abdominal subcutaneous adipose tissue is higher in black than white women, and associates...
Article
Full-text available
Women of African ancestry, particularly those living in industrialized countries, experience a disproportionately higher prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) compared to their white counterparts. Similarly, obesity and insulin resistance, which are major risk factors for T2D, are greater in black compared to white women. The exact mechanisms underly...
Thesis
Full-text available
Novel plant growth regulating substances (PGRs) are emerging as a useful tool to investigate important growth traits in plants. This study reports on growth promotion pathways leading to enhanced biomass accumulation in two PGRs sharing a common α, β-unsaturated furanone moiety. Growth promotion by GR24, a synthetic strigolactone, and an aqueous sm...

Questions

Questions (3)
Question
Funding for academic research has largely come from government and/or philanthropy. Can this funding model be updated to stay and/or become competitive with industry generated knowledge over the next few decades? Who should be funding academic research?
Thank you for all the contributions. Please comment if you have ideas
Question
The goal of the academic research unit is to connect similar research ideas with technical expertise and funding to facilitate the generation of well-designed, ethical research. Historically, government and philanthropic organizations have been the main sources of funding driving research efforts at academic institutions that enable the generation of fair and unbiased scientific knowledge to the benefit of all its citizens. Institutional oversight ensures strong research- and ethical policy adherence within the borders of its mandate before any research is undertaken or subsequent findings published in formal, peer-reviewed journals. To the fullest extent, this process has resulted in the steady, albeit slow growth of a large, credible scientific knowledge base. Alarmingly, it has become evident that the era of "Big data" has overturned this important scientific paradigm.
The explosion of social media, the proliferation of digital computing devices, and almost universal internet access have resulted in the generation of massive amounts of data that in practice can be analysed by anyone at near real-time speed without institutional or governmental oversight, creating a slew of new ethical challenges. Proprietary algorithms developed by corporate incentives process massive amounts of data to reveal information about emerging social, economic and health trends that inform market strategies and product development. Currently, it is not known to which extent this information is shared or by whom.
These technological advancements offer both opportunity as well as challenges to academic researchers. Given the speed and the amount of data being generated today, are we as academic researchers able to keep up with industry-generated knowledge and standards while bound to the confines and processes of our oversight committees and current funding models? What are the obstacles and opportunities facing the academic research milieu that ensure its relevance in the age of technological advancement? This conversation has just started. Please share your thoughts and ideas below.
Do you agree? If not, can you provide better insight?
In the end, it will be our ability to adapt to our changing environments that will ensure the relevance of the academic research institution over the years to come.
Question
While many PICO-type questions/systematic review tools exist for systematic review of human/animal intervention or observational studies, I would like to ask if a tool exists to evaluate primary/mechanistic type studies (laboratory technical protocols). For example, I would like to evaluate/GRADE the evidence behind pre-analysis protocols in epidemiological studies. The studies I will gather would be linked to, for example, storage/transport of blood samples- protocols, storage tube types- for DNA and RNA extraction, temperature monitoring and fluctuations, room temperature, freeze thawing. I can easily find best practice guidelines but I am having a hard time finding the evidence that these recommendations are based on. How can we evaluate these types of studies? Could bias or level/quality of evidence be measured in these types of studies?

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