This collection of papers represents an edited version of the Proceedings of the 9th European Symposium on Metabolism which was held at the University of Padua (Italy) from October 12-14, 2006. As did the Symposium itself, this work unites under a single cover topics dealing with four important metabolic alterations: diabetes, obesity, hyperlipidemia and hypertension. Of vital interest to the scientific community because of their cost in human life and medical expenditure, the latest edition of this Symposium received much attention from investigators in these fields.