- Auto-brewing syndrome is a rare disease where a person’s body produces alcohol in their gut, which can lead to drunkenness without consuming alcohol.
- Sometimes known as intestinal fermentation syndrome, it is caused by an imbalance of bacteria and an overgrowth of mold in the digestive system.
- In a case study, doctors successfully treated a 47-year-old man with auto-brewing syndrome with a fecal transplant after other treatments, such as a low-carb diet and anti-fungal medications, did not help.
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After taking a course in antibiotics, a 47-year-old man noticed that he felt drunk all day at seemingly random intervals – even without consuming alcohol.
This rare condition, known as auto-brewing syndrome, occurs when the body produces alcohol in the gut. Doctors tried to treat the man with a diet low in carbohydrates and antifungal medications, typically effective for this condition.
But it did not help. The patient still experienced periodic, accidental intoxication, in one case so severe that he lost his driver’s license after a random police check.
What finally worked was a poop transplant, according to a case study published Aug. 18 in Annals of Internal Medicine.
Doctors were able to transfer the fecal microbiota, the bacteria present in poop, into the patient’s small intestine. 34 months later, he remains symptom-free, according to the study.
The transplant was taken from the patient’s 22-year-old daughter.
Auto-brewing syndrome causes overgrowth of yeast to produce alcohol in the body
Researchers have theoretically found that overgrowth of mold, specifically certain types of yeast, is behind the unusual phenomenon. These fungi feed carbohydrates that a person consumes and produce alcohol, just as yeast can feed grain to produce beer outside the body.
In these cases, patients are often very intoxicated by the alcohol in their digestive system, even if they have not been drinking. In one extreme example, it was found that a man has four times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood due to auto-brewing syndrome.
Since blood sugar levels stimulate yeast-induced beverage production, diabetics and people with cirrhosis may be particularly susceptible to auto-brewing syndrome. Thus, people who have undergone a digestive disorder, or who have recently completed a course of antibiotics, may have both naturally occurring intestinal microbes disrupt and create an imbalance.
That was true for this latest case study. In addition to having recently taken antibiotics, the patient also had gastric bypass surgery years earlier.
A low-carb diet is sometimes effective in treating the syndrome
Typically, a low-carb diet can help treat this syndrome, because fewer carbohydrates in your system means less sugar for the yeast to convert to alcohol. An antifungal medication can also help tame the overgrown yeast.
In this case study, however, nearly two months of low-carb foods and four weeks of medication apparently failed.
The authors of the study recommend that fecal transplants be considered in similar cases of auto-brewing syndrome. If research into the transplants improves, they could one day be standard practice to treat this disease.
Read more:
A man’s gut expands his own alcohol, causing his blood alcohol level to be more than four times the legal limit without drinking
A woman was refused a transplant because she had alcohol in her system, despite not drinking. It turned out she had ‘auto-brewing syndrome.’
People turn to YouTube and Facebook to learn how to do DIY fecal transplants, hoping to treat everything from ulcerative colitis to anxiety
