A 50-year-old Canadian woman from Toronto experienced symptoms of alcohol intoxication like slurred speech, extreme sleepiness, dizziness, and elevated blood alcohol levels, despite not consuming alcohol due to her religious beliefs, which her husband confirmed.
After visiting the hospital seven times over two years and being misdiagnosed with alcohol intoxication, she was eventually diagnosed with auto-brewery syndrome (ABS), a rare condition where an overgrowth of fungi in the gut ferments carbohydrates into ethanol, causing the body to produce alcohol internally.
Risk factors for ABS include diabetes, liver disease, gastrointestinal issues, and changes in gut flora, allowing fungi to overgrow and produce alcohol through the fermentation of carbohydrates. In the woman's case, recurrent UTIs over the last 5 years and treatment with various medications, including proton pump inhibitors, antibiotics, and dexlansoprazole for gastrointestinal reflux disease, likely caused an imbalance in her gut microbiome, leading to the fermenting fungi and the development of ABS.
Treatment for ABS involves antifungal medications, low-carbohydrate diets, and probiotics to manage the overgrowth of fungi in the gut. The woman's symptoms disappeared after following this regimen but recurred when she reintroduced carbohydrates, highlighting the need for proper awareness and diagnosis of this rare condition with social, legal, and medical implications.
Misdiagnosis and disbelief are common for patients with ABS, as the condition is often diagnosed with years of delay, and some individuals can function with high blood alcohol levels without realizing it, leading to legal implications and acquittals in some cases, like Ray Lewis from Belgium, who was acquitted of drunk driving charges due to his ABS diagnosis after a legal battle. Driving with the condition is risky due to elevated blood alcohol levels without drinking.
Only around 100 cases of ABS have been documented in the US, and about 20 people globally have been officially diagnosed, but experts believe there are many more unrecorded cases. The severity of symptoms can vary based on the amount of carbohydrates consumed, and researchers believe antibiotics, poor nutrition, and genetic variations may contribute to the development of auto-brewery syndrome.
Sources: news.sky.com, independent.co.uk, cnn.com, welt.de, news.yahoo.com, nypost.com, bbc.com, thesun.co.uk, newindianexpress.com, thescottishsun.co.uk, liverpoolecho.co.uk
This article was written in collaboration with Generative AI news company Alchemiq.
