Before we all turn our thermostats down or consider joining the Polar Bear Club, can brown fat actually cause weight loss?

在我们把所有恒温关掉或考虑加入北极熊俱乐部之前，棕色脂肪真的能让体重减轻吗？

Research suggests it also helps create brown fat.

研究显示，它也有助于生成褐色脂肪。

Called brown fat, it burns energy rather than storing it.

这种脂肪名为褐色脂肪，与普通脂肪不同，其作用是消耗能量，而非储存能量。

Don’t expect a brown fat treatment anytime soon, though.

即使这样，不要指望近期能有“灰色脂肪治疗”。

Other mammals and human infants rely on brown fat to keep warm.

婴儿，还有其它哺乳动物都靠这种脂肪组织来产热。

“The purpose of brown fat is to be able to burn energy upon request, ” Celi said.

“灰色脂肪的目的就是尽快的燃烧能量。” Celi 说。

Like natural brown fat, the engineered cells burned calories at an astonishing rate.

像天然灰色脂肪一样，这些工程细胞能以一种惊人的速度燃烧这卡路里。

The scientists then transplanted the cells into mice, where they produced brown fat tissue.

科学家们接着将这些细胞转移到老鼠生产的棕色脂肪组织中。

Previously, scientists thought only small mammals and newborn babies harbored brown fat.

之前，科学家们认为只有小的哺乳动物和新生儿拥有灰色脂肪。

Identifying the presence of brown fat is one thing, but activating it to burn more glucose is another.

确定棕色脂肪的存在是一回事，但激活它让它燃烧更多葡萄糖是另一回事。

Kahn's and van Marken Lichtenbelt's groups also found that heavier people tended to have less brown fat.

Kahn和van Marken Lichtebelt的研究小组同时也发现了较重体重的人具有较少褐色脂肪组织的倾向。

The scientists suspected that PRDM16 worked with another unknown protein to initiate brown fat development.

科学家怀疑PRDM16与另一种未知的蛋白质一起作用于棕色脂肪的转变。

The studies also found that brown fat was more common in women, younger patients and patients who were thin.

研究还发现，褐色脂肪在女性、年轻病人以及消瘦病人身上更为常见。

The experiments did not test whether the extra brown fat actually protected the mice from becoming obese.

实验结果并没有测试是否有多余的棕色脂肪保护小鼠，使小鼠远离肥胖。

So you would need to activate a relatively little amount of brown fat to substantially impact overall energy metabolism.

所以，只需要激活相对少量的棕色脂肪，就可显著地影响整体能量代谢功能。

Brown fat, by contrast, works in an opposite fashion; it evolved to protect animals from cold conditions and prevent obesity.

相比之下，棕色脂肪恰恰相反。它在进化中帮助动物抵御寒冷和预防肥胖。

But before we all turn our thermostats down or consider joining the Polar Bear Club, can brown fat actually cause weight loss?

但在我们把所有恒温关掉或考虑加入北极熊俱乐部之前，棕色脂肪实际上真正能让体重减轻吗？

Scientists found that brown fat is remarkably similar to muscle, a discovery that could lead to new treatments for obesity.

科学家发现棕脂肪与肌肉及其相似。这一发现将会引导肥胖症的新型治疗方法。

A pill that can boost the activity of brown fat could help obese people, or others looking to shed pounds by burning more calories.

增强增色脂肪活性的药物可以帮助肥胖的人和其他想通过燃烧热量减肥的人。

Now, Spiegelman and colleagues have identified two proteins that act as molecular "switches" to turn on the production of brown fat.

现在，Spiegelman和他的同事们已经确定了两种起分子“开关”作用的蛋白质，它们是产生灰色脂肪的关键。

And while it's not clear how much brown fat would be needed to have an effect on body weight, he suspects that it wouldn't take much.

虽然现在还不清楚需要有多少棕色脂肪，才能对体重产生影响，他认为这不会需要太多。

But under certain conditions, such as those mimicking a cold environment, these progenitor cells can be induced to make more brown fat.

但是，在某些条件下，如模仿一个寒冷环境，这些母体细胞可被诱变，从而产生较多棕色脂肪。

The findings of Dutch researchers published in the NEJM raise the possibility of nondrug treatments related to brown fat, Dr. Celi said.

切利说，荷兰研究人员在《新英格兰医学期刊》公布的这一发现带来了从褐色脂肪着手进行非药物治疗的可能性。

Enerback and his team studied five patients and confirmed, using genetic analysis, that the cells around the neck were indeed brown fat.

enerback和他的小组研究5例病人后证实，用遗传学分析，在脖子上的组织确实是棕色脂肪。

Brown adipose tissue, sometimes called "brown fat," also plays a role by burning more energy in the form of heat in cooler temperatures.

棕色脂肪组织，有时被称为“棕脂肪”，在较低温度中消耗更多能量产生体热。

As people age, however, the body becomes more adept at regulating temperature, so brown fat stores shrink and white fat starts to emerge.

然而，随着人们年龄的增长，人体变得更善于调节温度，棕色脂肪沉积逐渐收缩，白色脂肪开始出现。