Texas Man Was Getting Drunk Without Alcohol, Because Beer Brewed Automatically In His Stomach

Drs. Barbara Cordell and Justin McCarthy at first thought the patient was hiding his alcoholism.

“He would get drunk out of the blue — on a Sunday morning after being at church, or really, just anytime,” Cordell explained. “His wife was so dismayed about it that she even bought a Breathalyzer.”

The research team made sure that the man was not in possession of any liquor and isolated him in a hospital room for a period of 24 hours. Even after consuming only food rich in carbohydrates, the man still ended up with a 0.12 blood alcohol content on his blood test.

During further testing, Cordell and McCarthy discovered a buildup of a certain type of yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, in the man’s intestinal tract. The condition, dubbed gut fermentation syndrome or auto-brewery syndrome, causes starch to ferment sugar and thus produces ethanol. Essentially, the man’s stomach was his own brewery.

The man was finally cured with a low-carbohydrate diet and a steady regimen of antifungals to help combat the yeast buildup.

By: Cheston Catalano

Cheston Catalano is a Kentucky-based journalist whose work has been featured in the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the Clarksville Leaf Chronicle. He is a long-time contributor to Liberaland.