The role of active brown adipose tissue (aBAT) in lipid metabolism in healthy Chinese adults

Background The prevalence of dyslipidemia in China was increased over the last several years. Studies have shown that the activity of aBAT is related to the lipid metabolism. In this study, we analyzed blood lipid level in tumor-free healthy Chinese adults in order to determine the role of aBAT in lipid metabolism. Methods We retrospectively analyzed the factors that affect the blood lipid level in 717 tumor-free healthy adults who received blood lipid measurement and PET/CT scan by multivariate regression analysis. We also determined the role of aBAT on lipid profile by case–control study. Results (1) Our results showed that 411 (57.3 %) subjects had dyslipidemia. The prevalence of the subjects with hypercholesteremia, hypertriglyceridemia, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol was 9.5 %, 44.4 %, 30.8 % and 1.4 %, respectively. Multivariate logistic regression analysis with dyslipidemia as the dependent variable showed that body mass index (BMI) and smoking are independent risk factors for dyslipidemia (OR > 1, P