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Jun 11, 2024 · From those rare cases, doctors and scientists have hypothesized that auto-brewery syndrome occurs when alcohol-fermenting fungi—usually brewer’s yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) or Candida...
- Overview
- What are the symptoms?
- What are the causes?
- How is it diagnosed?
- What are the treatment options?
- The takeaway
Auto brewery syndrome is a rare condition in which your body turns sugary and starchy foods into alcohol. This can cause symptoms as if you were drunk, even if you haven’t had any alcohol.
Auto brewery syndrome is also known as gut fermentation syndrome and endogenous ethanol fermentation. It’s sometimes called “drunkenness disease.” This rare condition makes you intoxicated — drunk — without drinking alcohol.
This happens when your body turns sugary and starchy foods (carbohydrates) into alcohol. Auto brewery syndrome can be difficult to diagnose. It may also be mistaken for other conditions.
Only a few cases of auto brewery syndrome have been reported in the last several decades. However, this medical condition has been mentioned in the news several times. Most of these stories involve people who were arrested for drinking and driving.
For example, one woman was found to have the condition after she was arrested for drunk driving in New York. Her blood alcohol level was four times the legal limit. She wasn’t charged because medical tests showed that auto brewery syndrome raised her blood alcohol levels.
It’s the type of story that the media loves, but it’s not likely to repeat itself very often. Nevertheless, this is a very real condition. It’s important to be diagnosed if you feel you may have it. Let’s take a closer look.
Auto brewery syndrome can make you:
•drunk without drinking any alcohol
•very drunk after only drinking a small amount of alcohol (such as two beers)
Symptoms and side effects are similar to when you are slightly drunk or when you have a hangover from drinking too much:
•red or flushed skin
•dizziness
In auto brewery syndrome, your body makes — “brews” — alcohol (ethanol) out of the carbohydrates you eat. This happens inside the gut or intestines. It may be caused by too much yeast in the gut. Yeast is a type of fungus.
Some kinds of yeast that might cause auto brewery syndrome are:
•Candida albicans
•Candida glabrata
•Torulopsis glabrata
•Candida krusei
There are no specific tests to diagnose auto brewery syndrome. This condition is still newly discovered and more research is needed. Symptoms alone are typically not enough for a diagnosis.
Your doctor will likely do a stool test to find out if you have too much yeast in your gut. This involves sending a tiny sample of a bowel movement to a lab to be tested. Another test that might be used by some doctors is the glucose challenge.
In the glucose challenge test, you’ll be given a glucose (sugar) capsule. You won’t be allowed to eat or drink anything else for a few hours before and after the test. After about an hour, your doctor will check your blood alcohol level. If you don’t have auto brewery syndrome your blood alcohol level will be zero. If you have auto brewery disease your blood alcohol level may range from 1.0 to 7.0 milligrams per deciliter.
If you suspect you have this auto brewery syndrome, you might try a similar test at home, though you shouldn’t use it to self-diagnose. Eat something sugary, like a cookie, on an empty stomach. After an hour use an at-home breathalyzer to see if your blood alcohol level has risen. Write down any symptoms.
Auto brewery syndrome can be treated. Your doctor may recommend reducing carbohydrates in your diet. Treating an underlying condition like Crohn’s disease may help balance fungus in your gut.
Your doctor may prescribe antifungal medications. These drugs work to get rid of fungus infections that may be causing the problem in your gut. You might have to take the medications for three weeks or longer.
Antifungal drugs and other medications to help treat auto brewery syndrome include:
•fluconazole
•nystatin
•oral antifungal chemotherapy
Although it isn’t common, auto brewery syndrome is a serious disease and can impact your life. In some cases, people with auto brewery syndrome are falsely suspected of being “closet” drinkers. Like any illness, your symptoms might differ from someone else with auto brewery syndrome.
While it’s been used as a defense against drunk driving a handful of times, auto brewery syndrome doesn’t commonly spike your blood alcohol level over the legal limit. You may feel slightly drunk while someone else may feel like they have a hangover.
If you think you have this condition, write down any symptoms you experience. Record what you ate and what time you had signs of auto brewery syndrome. Tell your doctor immediately. Ask them to check your gut yeast levels and give you other medical tests to find out what’s causing your symptoms.
Feeling “buzzed” or drunk without drinking may not sound like an important health concern. However, it can affect your well-being, safety, relationships, and job. Seek medical help urgently. Auto brewery syndrome may also be a sign of an underlying condition that is out of control.
- Snorting: When most people think about snorting substances, they probably think about cocaine or crushed prescription painkillers. They’re not likely to think about alcohol, but some people have attempted to get drunk faster by snorting alcohol.
- Inhaling: Aside from snorting, inhaling vaporized alcohol can get the chemical into the bloodstream rapidly. Vaporizers used for tobacco or marijuana may evaporate alcohol, or just boiling it over a stove can cause some alcohol to get into the steam.
- Under the tongue: Sublingual absorption, or placing something under the tongue, is an increasingly popular method of taking medications. Because the mucous membranes under the tongue absorb drugs rapidly, some people now use sublingual absorption to abuse alcohol.
- Enemas: Like the above forms of alcohol abuse, an alcohol enema assumes that the intoxicating chemical will be efficiently absorbed through sensitive mucous membranes.
Feb 15, 2016 · There’s a notion that mixing alcohol (for instance, drinking vodka and then switching to beer, or starting with wine and then finishing with rum) is bad for us. But why do we feel that mixing alcohol makes us significantly sicker than sticking with the same stuff?
Jun 14, 2024 · Auto-brewery syndrome is a rare condition that occurs when food ferments in your stomach and produces ethanol, the same alcohol found in alcoholic drinks. The condition can cause you to act...
This condition is rare and may make you feel intoxicated without having alcohol. Auto brewery syndrome is typically the most common cause for this feeling. It results when your body transforms starchy and sugary foods into alcohol.
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Dec 17, 2019 · It’s called auto-brewery syndrome (ABS) and has also been referred to as “gut fermentation”. The proposed cause of this syndrome is that yeast grows in parts of the digestive tract where it shouldn’t, and this yeast feasts on the sugars from the diet and turns these carbohydrates into alcohol.
