Twenty-four hour ambulatory blood pressure reference values in Africans.

Objective: We aimed to establish reference values for 24 h ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitoring in an African community.

Patients And Methods: We randomly recruited 1219 participants of African ancestry from Soweto, a township in Johannesburg. Twenty-four hour ABP was measured using ABP monitors (model 90207; Spacelab).

Obesity masks the relationship between dietary salt intake and blood pressure in people of African ancestry: the impact of obesity on the relationship between sodium and blood pressure.

Previous studies conducted to investigate the relationship between sodium intake and blood pressure in our African population have yielded contradictory results. With the high prevalence of obesity in this population, it is possible that these contradictory findings are due to the masking effects of obesity on this relationship. We measured 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure and 24-hour urine excretion on 547 South Africans of African ancestry.