[Obesity: entrance port to multimorbidity].

Obesity is an essential risk factor for hypertension, coronary heart disease and stroke as well as for metabolic disturbances, especially for type 2 diabetes, hyper- and dyslipidemia, and it is responsible for the metabolic syndrome with insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia. Disturbances in the lung function are also induced by obesity, as a higher risk for arthrosis on the lower extremities. Some oncological diseases like breast-, endometrial-, and prostatic cancer are associated with obesity. It is evident, that the fat distribution plays an important role in the development of obesity associated diseases: the accumulation of visceral fat has a higher risk as the peripheral fat, probably due to the different metabolism.