An overview of obesity‐related complications: The epidemiological evidence linking body weight and other markers of obesity to adverse health outcomes

Obesity is a highly prevalent chronic multisystem disease associated with shortened life expectancy due to a number of adverse health outcomes. Epidemiological data link body weight and parameters of central fat distribution to an increasing risk for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver diseases, cardiovascular diseases including myocardial infarction, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, stroke, obstructive sleep apnoea, osteoarthritis, mental disorders and some types of cancer. However, the individual risk to develop cardiometabolic and other obesity-related diseases cannot entirely be explained by increased fat mass. Rather than excess fat accumulation, dysfunction of adipose tissue may represent the…