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Auto-Brewery Syndrome (Internal Alcohol Production)

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Zilch5

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Auto-Brewery Syndrome: Apparently, You Can Make Beer In Your Gut

This medical case may give a whole new meaning to the phrase "beer gut."

A 61-year-old man — with a history of home-brewing — stumbled into a Texas emergency room complaining of dizziness. Nurses ran a Breathalyzer test. And sure enough, the man's blood alcohol concentration was a whopping 0.37 percent, or almost five times the legal limit for driving in Texas.

There was just one hitch: The man said that he hadn't touched a drop of alcohol that day.

"He would get drunk out of the blue — on a Sunday morning after being at church, or really, just anytime," says , the dean of nursing at Panola College in Carthage, Texas. "His wife was so dismayed about it that she even bought a Breathalyzer."

Other medical professionals chalked up the man's problem to "closet drinking." But Cordell and Dr. Justin McCarthy, a gastroenterologist in Lubbock, wanted to figure out what was really going on.

So the team searched the man's belongings for liquor and then isolated him in a hospital room for 24 hours. Throughout the day, he ate carbohydrate-rich foods, and the doctors periodically checked his blood for alcohol. At one point, it rose 0.12 percent.

Eventually, McCarthy and Cordell pinpointed the culprit: an overabundance of brewer's yeast in his gut.

That's right, folks. According to Cordell and McCarthy, the man's intestinal tract was acting like his own internal brewery.

The patient had an infection with , Cordell says. So when he ate or drank a bunch of starch — a bagel, pasta or even a soda — the yeast fermented the sugars into ethanol, and he would get drunk. Essentially, he was brewing beer in his own gut. Cordell and McCarthy the case of "auto-brewery syndrome" a few months ago in the International Journal of Clinical Medicine.

When we first read the case study, we were more than a little skeptical. It sounded crazy, a phenomenon akin to spontaneous combustion. I mean, come on: Could a person's gut really generate that much ethanol?

Brewer's yeast is in a whole host of foods, including breads, wine and, of course, beer (hence, the name). The critters usually don't do any harm. They just flow right through us. Some people even take Saccharomyces as a probiotic supplement.

But it turns out that in rare cases, the yeasty beasts can indeed take up long-term residency in the gut and possibly cause problems, says , a microbiologist at Duke University.
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More at the link: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/0 ... um=twitter
 
Auto-Brewery Syndrome (ABS) had previously been linked with yeast infections in the digestive tract. ABS has now been linked to a particular type of gut bacteria. Research results further suggest ABS can damage the liver (nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; NAFLD).
These Gut Bacteria Brew Their Own Booze, and May Harm Livers in People Who Don't Drink

It's common knowledge that drinking too much alcohol can lay waste to your liver. But now, researchers have spotted a strain of gut bacteria that produces its own booze in copious amounts — high enough to potentially pose a risk of liver problems in people who don't drink at all.

Although much more research is needed to confirm the results, they suggest that these boozy bacteria may contribute to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a condition in which fat builds up in the liver for reasons unrelated to alcohol consumption.

The researchers first stumbled upon this unusual microbe while they were studying a patient with a curious condition: The patient had so-called auto-brewery syndrome (ABS), an extremely rare condition that leaves people drunk after eating sugary food. In the week before he sought medical care, the unfortunate patient became inebriated each time he consumed a carbohydrate-rich meal and his blood-alcohol concentration had occasionally spiked to potentially lethal levels, around 0.4%. He was even suspected to be a "closet drinker" by his friends, according to the new study, published today (Sept. 19) in the journal Cell Metabolism.

ABS has been linked to yeast infections, wherein the fungus ferments alcohol in the intestines just as it brews beer in barrels; but in this case, yeast wasn't the culprit.

The researchers looked to their patient's poop for answers. They found, not yeast, but strains of alcohol-producing bacteria called Klebsiella pneumonia. This is the first time that a bacterium has been linked to ABS, study co-author Jing Yuan, a professor and director of the bacteriology laboratory at the Capital Institute of Pediatrics in Beijing, told Live Science in an email. Though the common gut bacteria poses no problem in healthy people, the microbe appeared to be producing four to six times the normal level of alcohol in the patient.

Besides becoming intoxicated, the patient also suffered from severe liver inflammation and scarring due to a buildup of fat in the organ, his doctors noted. The condition, called nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, is a progressive form of NAFLD, and the researchers wondered if others with the disorder might carry the same "super-strain" of boozy bacteria. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/alcohol-producing-gut-bacteria-harm-liver.html
 
Popular as a defence for those caught drink-driving. All you heed is a brief who’s a bit wide, plus an...approachable...doctor.

maximus otter
 
Here's another case from the USA ...
A Man's Gut Made Him Extremely Drunk by Brewing Alcohol When He Ate Carbs

It began as a simple thumb injury. Then, it spiralled into a dangerous syndrome where a man's gut essentially became a brewery fermenting its own endless alcohol supply - which is not as fun as it sounds.

In a recent case study, doctors recount the strange symptoms of auto-brewery syndrome (ABS): a rarely diagnosed medical condition where simply ingesting carbohydrates can be enough to make you wildly inebriated. Even worse, nobody believes you when you say you haven't been drinking.

At least, that was the case for the unfortunate 46-year-old patient in question, an otherwise healthy man who'd only ever been a light social drinker.

His troubles began in 2011, after he completed a course of antibiotics for a thumb injury. Within one week of finishing the meds, he reported experiencing uncharacteristic personality changes, including depression, 'brain fog', aggressive behaviour, and memory loss.

He was eventually referred to a psychiatrist and given antidepressants, but it was only when the man was pulled over by police one morning in an apparent case of drunk driving that the true nature of his illness started to reveal itself.

When pulled over, he refused to take a breathalyser test and was hospitalised, with tests showing he had a blood alcohol level of 200 mg/dL, equivalent to having drunk approximately 10 alcoholic drinks, and sufficient to induce confusion, disorientation, impaired balance, and slurred speech.

"The hospital personnel and police refused to believe him when he repeatedly denied alcohol ingestion," researchers from Richmond University Medical Centre note in their case report.

After being discharged from hospital, he sought treatment at a clinic in Ohio. In medical tests, most of his readings looked normal, but his stool sample showed the presence of Saccharomyces cerevisiae (also known as brewer's yeast) and a related fungus.

S. cerevisiae has a long history in beer brewing and winemaking (in addition to baking), as it helps ferment carbohydrates and produces alcohol.

While the patient was successfully treated at the clinic, his ABS diagnosis revealed itself in subsequent flare-ups, with the most serious incident involving a fall while inebriated that resulted in intracranial bleeding.

While recovering in hospital, his blood alcohol spiked as high as 400 mg/dL – twice the concentration recorded when he was pulled over – but still "medical staff refused to believe that he did not drink alcohol despite his persistent denials", the researchers write.

Fortunately for the patient, he eventually sought treatment conducted in collaboration with the Richmond University specialists, who used a combination of anti-fungal therapies and probiotics to treat the man's gut microflora. ...
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FULL STORY:
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-man-...ly-drunk-by-brewing-alcohol-when-he-ate-carbs

PUBLISHED CASE REPORT:
https://bmjopengastro.bmj.com/content/6/1/e000325
 
Girl i spoke to on a forum, said when she ate strawberrys she acted like she was drunk. I have known her for 9 years, good woman, only have contact with her on birthday now
 
James_H said:
I know it's a joke but to answer it seriously: I think they probably do.
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So, greenhouse hazard either way.

Anyone who suffers from the above may like to take a cigarette lighter with them next time they have a bath, and report back.
 
INT21 said:
Do these people fart Carbon Dioxide instead of Methane ?
Click to expand...

If the process involved is indeed simple fermentation of glucose, the resultant gas by-product would be CO2.
 
So, if the flame of your lighter is extinguished then it is Co2. If there is a dull red flame and a rather foul stench, methane.
 
Here's a new twist on the ABS condition ... This woman was fermenting alcohol in her bladder rather than her gastrointestinal tract, and the resultant alcohol was never entering her bloodstream. She was repeatedly testing positive for alcohol and being rejected for liver transplantation. Finally, a doctor took her denials of alcohol usage seriously and delved deeper ...

Technically, this isn't classic ABS, because the alcohol wasn't entering her system ...
A woman's bladder 'brewed' its own alcohol, tripping drug test

Microbes in the woman's bladder were fermenting sugar into alcohol, causing her to test positive on a urine drug test

When a woman in Pennsylvania needed a life-saving liver transplant, she repeatedly ran up against one vexing problem: She kept testing positive for alcohol — which disqualified her from a transplant — even though she swore she hadn't been drinking.

Doctors would later discover that something quite strange was going on: Microbes in the woman's bladder were fermenting alcohol, according to a new report of the case.

The woman's condition is similar to a rare disorder called "auto-brewery syndrome" (ABS), in which microbes in the gastrointestinal tract convert carbohydrates into alcohol. People with ABS can get drunk just from eating carbs, Live Science previously reported. But in the woman's case, the fermentation was taking place in her bladder, which makes her condition distinct from ABS, the report said. In her case, the alcohol didn't get from the bladder into the bloodstream, so the woman didn't appear intoxicated.

The woman's condition was so rare that it didn't even have a name yet. Her doctors proposed calling it "urinary auto-brewery syndrome" or "bladder fermentation syndrome."

The 61-year-old woman went to the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Presbyterian Hospital because she had cirrhosis, or scarring of the liver, and needed to be placed on the liver-transplant waitlist, according to the report. She also had diabetes that was not under control, meaning her blood sugar levels were high.

Previously, the woman had visited another hospital, but she could not get on the liver-transplant waitlist there, because her urine repeatedly tested positive for alcohol. Doctors at that hospital told her she needed treatment for alcohol addiction. ...

That's when doctors noticed something curious: Urine tests for two metabolites of alcohol, ethyl glucuronide and ethyl sulfate, were negative for the woman. This was puzzling because at least one of these metabolites should be present in urine for several days after a person drinks alcohol, said study senior author Dr. Kenichi Tamama, an associate professor of pathology and medical director of UPMC's Clinical Toxicology Laboratory. "This was the first clue" that something was off, Tamama said.

The woman's blood tests for ethanol were also negative, and she did not appear intoxicated. ...

... (T)he researchers conducted a careful experiment; they took a sample of the patient's "freshly voided urine" and quickly put it on ice. Then, they incubated the sample in a test tube at body temperature (98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, 37 degrees Celsius) and saw "remarkably high levels of ethanol production," the report said. This production did not occur when the sample was incubated at a lower temperature (39 F, 4 C) or if the researchers added a chemical to block fermentation.

"We concluded that the discrepant test results were best explained by yeast fermenting sugar in the bladder," the authors wrote. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/womans-bladder-ferments-alcohol.html

See Also:
https://www.sciencealert.com/doctors-report-the-first-known-case-of-a-woman-who-urinates-alcohol
 
Last edited:
EnolaGaia said:
Here's a new twist on the ABS condition ... This woman was fermenting alcohol in her bladder rather than her gastrointestinal tract, and the resultant alcohol was never entering her bloodstream. She was repeatedly testing positive for alcohol and being rejected for liver transplantation. Finally, a doctor took her denials of alcohol usage seriously and delved deeper ...

Technically, this isn't classic ABS, because the alcohol wasn't entering her system ...

FULL STORY: https://www.livescience.com/womans-bladder-ferments-alcohol.html

See Also:
https://www.sciencealert.com/doctors-report-the-first-known-case-of-a-woman-who-urinates-alcohol
Click to expand...
Most people would notice if they've got a yeast infection.
 
We have an older thread involving a ship's captain who attempted to evade drunk driving charges by claiming his liver was producing alcohol. He ended up dropping his challenge (and attempts to prove he exhibited auto-brewery syndrome caused by fatty liver disease or liver cancer), leaving his claim unverified.

Man Charged As Drunk Driver Claims His Liver Produces Alcohol
https://forums.forteana.org/index.p...river-claims-his-liver-produces-alcohol.4758/
 
In this newly reported case a "poop transplant" reset the patient's gastrointestinal microbiota and cured his ABS problem.
Doctors Used a Poop Transplant to Cure a Man Whose Gut Was Making Him Drunk

A rare syndrome in which the human gut brews its own alcohol has been successfully treated with a poop transplant when nothing else was working, marking the first such case in medical literature.

Known as auto-brewery syndrome (ABS), this extraordinary condition can leave patients feeling downright intoxicated, even if they haven't had a single thing to drink.

ABS is caused by microorganisms - usually fungi - in the gut feasting on recently-eaten carbohydrates to produce their own brew of alcohol. ...

This can sometimes occur after a course of antibiotics throws the gut balance off.

Initially, this is what brought a 47-year-old man to the hospital in Belgium. Since finishing a dose of antibiotics, he had been experiencing unexplained moments of inebriation. ...

The patient told doctors he hadn't consumed a drink in four days, and yet upon further testing, his blood ethanol levels were more than 17 times what's considered normal, or twice the legal limit in the United States.

Doctors diagnosed him with gut fermentation syndrome, or ABS, and prescribed oral anti-fungals and a low-carb diet. But it only helped a little. Even an increased dose of the high-potency anti-fungal medication amphotericin taken for four weeks appeared unsuccessful: The patient still felt inebriated and his wife reported she could smell the alcohol on his breath.

After he was ticketed for drunk driving at a random police check, the patient and his doctors decided to try something more drastic: a faecal microbiota transplantation, more commonly known as a poop transplant.

In recent years, poop transplants have been proposed as a promising new way to re-balance gut microbiota among certain groups of people. That said, they appear to only work against some infections, and there are potentially life-threatening risks that need to be taken into consideration.

However, the man was willing to try it, and the sample was voluntarily donated by his 22-year-old daughter. Luckily, the poop transplant worked wonderfully. Nearly three years later, the patient still remains free of ABS symptoms, and his blood ethanol levels have returned to normal. He even got his driver's license back. ...
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FULL STORY: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-poop...larly-resistant-case-of-auto-brewery-syndrome
 
EnolaGaia said:
Here's a new twist on the ABS condition ... This woman was fermenting alcohol in her bladder rather than her gastrointestinal tract, and the resultant alcohol was never entering her bloodstream. She was repeatedly testing positive for alcohol and being rejected for liver transplantation. Finally, a doctor took her denials of alcohol usage seriously and delved deeper ...
Technically, this isn't classic ABS, because the alcohol wasn't entering her system ...
Click to expand...

Bump / update ...

ScienceAlert has published an updated version of this story, which is essentially identical to the one cited in February 2020 except for some additional details on how they came to diagnose the situation.

The published report on this woman's case uses the label "Urinary Auto-brewery Syndrome" for the condition, so they've apparently settled on this name for it.

Here are the bibliographic details for the published report on this case (which wasn't published at the time I originally reported about it).

Urinary Auto-brewery Syndrome: A Case Report
Katherine M. Kruckenberg, BA, Andrea F. DiMartini, MD, et al.
Annals of Internal Medicine, Volume 172, Issue 10 (May 19, 2020)
https://doi.org/10.7326/L19-0661
 
This Pennsylvania man had major personality / emotional issues until it was finally determined he was suffering from ABS. His situation was more socially complicated than most, because he's a pastor.
Pastor Discovers His Gut Has Been Brewing Its Own Beer Due To Rare Condition

A pastor has discovered that his gut has been brewing its own alcohol every time he eats carbs due to a rare condition.

Although, at first glance, it might sound like a brilliant problem to have - that hasn't been the case.

Adam Stump suffers from auto-brewery syndrome (ABS) and it would lead him to becoming very drunk and aggressive, without touching a drop of the hard stuff.

The 40-year-old would often black out and slur his speech.

His bewildered wife Jana Stump, 37, was convinced that her hubby was an alcoholic. ...

After various trips to the doctors, who also thought he was a secret alcoholic, it was discovered that he had been suffering from ABS.

The dad-of-four now takes antibiotics to manage his condition. ...

"I would slur my speech, black out and walk around talking but not remember any of it. I was quite belligerent and combative. I didn't hurt anyone but once I threw the dining room table and had to get a friend round to calm me down.

"There were a few times where my wife would be looking for me and I'd be in strange places like the garden or laying on the basement floor with no recollection of how I got there." ...

He added: "I wasn't a very pleasant person to be around. I felt like I was going to snap.

"Some people can be funny when they're drunk but that isn't what auto-brewery syndrome is. It's a personality changer. It's like having a hangover and being drunk at the same time." ...

After undergoing testing, doctors revealed Adam had ABS in February 2021 and began treatment in March.

Now Adam has been forced to give up practically all carbs and lives on a diet of meat, cheese and eggs.

The difficult withdrawal symptoms - including nausea, diarrhoea and stomach cramps - meant Adam was forced to take three months off work. ...
Click to expand...
FULL STORY: https://www.ladbible.com/news/man-discovers-his-gut-has-been-brewing-its-own-beer-20211215
 
Mythopoeika said:
Most people would notice if they've got a yeast infection.
Click to expand...

This wasn't a run-of-the-mill yeast infection:

But in the woman's case, the fermentation was taking place in her bladder, which makes her condition distinct from ABS, the report said. In her case, the alcohol didn't get from the bladder into the bloodstream, so the woman didn't appear intoxicated.

The woman's condition was so rare that it didn't even have a name yet. Her doctors proposed calling it "urinary auto-brewery syndrome" or "bladder fermentation syndrome."
Click to expand...
 
Could this be linked to spontaneous human combustion? :omr:
 
There is an episode of QI, I think the Quagmire one, where the actress Sally Phillips talks about her experience as a microbrewery. It was due to a yeast infection in the brain.
 
RaM said:
Could this be linked to spontaneous human combustion? :omr:
Click to expand...
It's an interesting idea, but I'd think that the blood alcohol level simply would not be high enough for that to happen.
Even ingesting hard liquor all day would not normally produce a blood alcohol level that would be high enough.
SHC might be happening as a result of lighting a cig with a mouth full of liquor that then ignites, spilling over clothes and causing the clothes to burn.
 

He has a rare condition where his body makes alcohol. It cost him his job and house​


When Mark Mongiardo was in his second year of teaching, someone commented that he smelled of alcohol. He felt surprised because he hadn’t had any alcoholic beverages and wouldn’t risk his career by imbibing at work.

In 2005, Mongiardo began his teaching and coaching career. When someone complained of him smelling like alcohol, he recalls being called into the principal’s office — something that happened off and on for the next several years. It escalated, and from 2012 and 2016, he often found himself in the principal or athletic director’s office answering questions about alcohol consumption.

He eventually switched jobs to become an athletic director. Three weeks into his new gig, police pulled him over, and he failed a field sobriety test. His new boss gave him a chance.

“The superintendent said, ‘You’ve done such a great job within the first three weeks of being an athletic director that we actually are willing to move past it,’” Mongiardo recalls. “When I got pulled over six months later, that’s when I knew something was wrong. ... Two DWIs within six months, I was facing felony charges. So, they had no choice. The district put me on administrative leave.”

“I tried to get a job, but I had pending felony charges,” Mongiardo says. “With pending felony charges, with the department of education, my fingerprints are on hold, so I couldn’t get a teaching position. I tried getting a job at Aldi supermarket but my background check, I didn’t pass.”

Mongiardo found a doctor who was familiar with auto-brewery syndrome. The doctor ran a glucose challenge test to see if Mongiardo had the condition. While fasting, Mongiardo’s blood-alcohol concentration (BAC) was zero, considered completely sober. As he consumed a sugary beverage for the test, his BAC steadily increased.

“Within the first hour, I was at 0.14,” he says. “Once I saw that, (the doctor) was just shaking his head. He said, ‘You have auto-brewery syndrome absolutely. Your BAC level went through the roof.’ We were crying. Honestly, it was just so emotional.”

https://news.yahoo.com/rare-condition-where-body-makes-212354045.html

maximus otter
 

Belgian man whose body produces alcohol cleared of drunk-driving​


A Belgian man with a condition that causes his body to naturally produce alcohol has been cleared of drunk-driving.

The man’s lawyer Anse Ghesquiere said that just 20 people globally have been officially diagnosed with the condition.

The man, whose identity was not given, also works at a brewery.

Three doctors who examined the man confirmed that he had ABS, Ms Ghesquiere said.

The Bruges police court acquitted the man on Monday.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/wor...-drink-driving-b1153152.html?ref=upstract.com

maximus otter
 
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