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《Nature》于2026年10月14日发表研究指出，人体中能燃烧卡路里产热的“棕色脂肪”，若处于活跃状态，可能与更低的2型糖尿病、抑郁和焦虑风险相关。洛克菲勒大学与纪念斯隆—凯特琳癌症中心团队分析了逾10万名患者的扫描与病历，并用人工智能量化棕色脂肪活动。本文说明主要发现、证据边界，以及研究顺带提出的药物线索。

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Most people think of body fat as something that only stores extra energy. Yet the body also has brown fat, a different tissue that burns calories to make heat. On October 14, 2026, the journal Nature published a large study of more than 100,000 people. It found that those with active brown fat were less likely to have type 2 diabetes, depression, and anxiety than those without it.

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大多数人把身体脂肪想成只是储存多余能量的东西。但人体还有一种棕色脂肪，它是另一种组织，会燃烧卡路里来产热。2026年10月14日，期刊《Nature》发表了一项涵盖超过10万人的大型研究。研究发现，拥有活跃棕色脂肪的人，比起没有的人，更不容易出现2型糖尿病、抑郁和焦虑。

Brown fat usually sits around the neck, armpits, and chest. Scientists once believed it almost disappeared after babyhood. Since 2009, however, research has shown that many adults still keep some of it. When brown fat is “active,” it is turned on and burning fuel. That activity can be seen on special medical scans that doctors already use to follow cancer treatment. Because those scans are common in oncology, they offered a practical way to study brown fat in a large group.

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棕色脂肪通常分布在颈部、腋窝和胸部周围。科学家一度认为，它在婴儿期之后几乎会消失。不过自2009年以来，研究显示许多成年人仍保留着一部分。当棕色脂肪处于“活跃”状态时，它被启动并在燃烧燃料。这种活动可以在医生本已用于跟踪癌症治疗的特殊医学扫描中看到。正因为这些扫描在肿瘤科很常见，它们为在很大群体中研究棕色脂肪提供了可行途径。

A team led by Paul Cohen of The Rockefeller University worked with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. They reviewed records from 101,243 patients who had received the scans. About 8,900 people showed brown fat on at least one scan. Using an artificial intelligence tool, the researchers then measured how active the brown fat was in roughly 8,700 of them.

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洛克菲勒大学的Paul Cohen带领团队，与纽约纪念斯隆—凯特琳癌症中心合作。他们审阅了101,243名接受过上述扫描的患者记录。约8,900人至少在一次扫描中显示出棕色脂肪。研究者再用人工智能工具，测量了其中约8,700人棕色脂肪的活跃程度。

Across hundreds of health codes, heart and mental conditions stood out. People with brown fat had lower odds of type 2 diabetes and of chronic heart disease. They also had lower odds of anxiety disorders and depressive episodes. Lab markers often looked better too, such as lower average blood sugar. Higher measured brown-fat activity went with stronger links to better cardiometabolic health.

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在数百个健康诊断代码中，心脏与精神相关状况尤为突出。有棕色脂肪的人，患2型糖尿病和慢性心脏病的几率更低；焦虑障碍与抑郁发作的几率也更低。一些实验室指标往往也更好，例如平均血糖更低。测得的棕色脂肪活动越高，与较好的心血管代谢健康之间的关联也越强。

The paper is careful about what it can and cannot say. The study looked backward at existing records, so it cannot prove that brown fat itself causes better health. All patients came from a cancer center, and many other factors may matter. Still, outside experts called the work unusually large and useful. Future studies will need to test whether raising brown-fat activity truly improves outcomes.

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论文对能说什么、不能说什么很谨慎。这项研究是回溯已有记录，因此无法证明棕色脂肪本身导致了更好的健康。所有患者都来自癌症中心，许多其他因素也可能起作用。不过，外部专家称这项工作规模罕见、很有价值。未来研究还需要检验：提高棕色脂肪活动是否真能改善结局。

The same project also noticed that some blood pressure medicines known as ARBs were linked to more brown fat. In follow-up lab and mouse work, the common drug losartan raised brown-fat activity and whole-body energy use. That does not mean readers should change medicine on their own. It does suggest that brown fat is no longer only a curiosity — it may be a clue for both physical and mental health research.

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同一项目还注意到，一些被称为ARB的降压药与更多棕色脂肪有关。在后续的实验室和小鼠实验中，常用药物氯沙坦提高了棕色脂肪活动与全身能量消耗。这并不意味着读者应自行更改用药。但它提示：棕色脂肪不再只是好奇话题——它可能成为身心健康研究的一条线索。

新闻来源

• Nature · Overlooked brown fat linked to wide range of health benefits (14 Oct 2026)
• Nature · Artificial intelligence-enabled clinical phenotyping of human brown fat (14 Oct 2026)
• NIH · A blood-pressure drug may activate health-promoting brown fat (14 Oct 2026)

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