Nthai Ramoshaba

• Doctor of Philosophy
• Lecturer at Walter Sisulu University

Hypertension is a public health problem in South Africa. Increases in subcutaneous fat, presented by the neck circumference (NC) value, contribute to and predict the development of hypertension. However, to date, there has been no study done to investigate the relationship between the NC and blood pressure (BP) among historically disadvantaged univ...

Masked hypertension is known to induce microvascular complications. However, it is unclear whether early microvascular changes are already occurring in young, otherwise healthy adults. We therefore investigated whether retinal microvascular calibers and acute responses to a flicker stimulus are related to masked hypertension. We used the baseline d...

Purpose: Globally, a detrimental shift in cardiovascular disease risk factors and a higher mortality level are reported in some black populations. The retinal microvasculature provides early insight into the pathogenesis of systemic vascular diseases, but it is unclear whether retinal vessel calibers and acute retinal vessel functional responses d...

Background: It is notable that sitting height (SH) correlates with blood pressure (BP) in children and adolescents of developed countries. However, little is known about the relationships between SH and SH to height ratio (SH/H) with BP in South African children from middle and upper socio-economic groups. The purpose of this study was to compare...

There are complications in diagnosing hypertension in children and adolescents due to variation of blood pressure (BP) values to age, gender and height. This study was aimed at assessing whether the performance of BP-to-height ratio (BPHR) can be an effective tool for screening prehypertension and hypertension in Ellisras Longitudinal Study (ELS) c...

Handgrip strength and arm hang have been recognized as predictors of muscle strength and presented as biomarkers for important health outcomes and overall fitness of an individual. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between arm hang and handgrip strength with BMI and skinfold thickness. A total of 769 children (391 boys and 3...

The prevalence of diabetes is increasing worldwide. High blood glucose has been associated with loss of muscle strength and mass in the lower extremities. However, in African children, little is known about the association between handgrip strength, flexed arm hang or other measures of muscle strength with blood glucose. The objective of the study...

To date, there has been no study done investigating the relationship between the components of height and blood pressure (BP) in rural South African children. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between height, sitting height (SH), leg length (LL), and SH-to-height ratio (SH/H) with BP in Ellisras rural children. Al...

Background: Underweight, overweight and high blood pressure (BP) are known cardiovascular risk factors in children. The objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between the neck circumference (NC) and mid upper arm circumference (MUAC) with BP in Ellisras rural children age 5-12 years. Methods: All children (n=1029 boys, n=932 gir...