Not fun actually: Man discovers he can brew beer in his own stomach

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In the U.S. there are something like 7,000 breweries. Over a million people are now brewing beer at home. But there’s only one person so far who’s been able to brew beer in his own stomach.

According to a case study in the medical journal BMJ Open Gastroenterology, a 46-year-old man developed a rare condition called auto-brewery system where carbohydrates he consumed were converted to alcohol by fungi in his gut.

The condition caused him to have all the symptoms of being drunk, without having had any alcohol to drink.

Think of the interesting implications. You’d save a fortune on bar tabs. When you and your friends go out for happy hour, all you’d need to order is pretzels. You’d have a lot less to carry on fishing trips. Environmentalists would be happy because you wouldn’t be throwing away any cans or bottles.

But lest you think the man was living one endless loop of frat parties, the condition did have its down side.

The man’s problems started in 2011 when he started to have symptoms of dizziness, brain fog and aggression.

His doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him, and in 2014 he was referred to a psychiatrist who prescribed antidepressants.

The new meds didn’t help his condition though, and one morning he was pulled over for a DUI. The man insisted he hadn’t been drinking a thing, but a blood test indicated he had alcohol in his system equivalent to about 20 drinks. Needless to say, he was arrested.

But at the insistence of his aunt, he sought out additional tests.

Per Newsweek, Doctors found the fungus Saccharomyces cerevisiae, or brewer’s yeast, in the man’s stool sample. The fungus is commonly used in brewing to turn carbohydrates into alcohol, and was kicking off this process in the man’s digestive system, causing his alcohol blood levels to spike without him drinking.

In a test for auto-brewery syndrome, the man was asked to eat a meal heavy in carbohydrates. His blood alcohol levels rose after the meal. Doctors prescribed him with anti-fungal medication, and told him to stop eating carbohydrates.

However, this medication didn’t work either. He was still having symptoms of being drunk, which at one point caused him to hit his head hard enough to cause bleeding in his skull.

Doctors still didn’t believe he hadn’t been drinking.

So, he found some new doctors at the gastroenterology department at Richmond University Medical Center in New York. The physicians there prescribed a different anti-fungal medication and ordered him to cut out carbs for six weeks. They confirmed fungal yeast had formed in his upper small bowel and a pouch linking the junction of his small and large intestines.

Eeeuuw.

The doctors believed his condition was triggered by a long course of antibiotics he’d taken years before, which changed the make-up of the bacteria in his gut. Then the problem was made worse by fungal mold he encountered as a construction worker in contaminated houses.

A year and a half after his treatment at Richmond University, the man’s symptoms have disappeared and he can eat normally.

Fahad Malik, who treated the man when he was a physician at Richmond University Medical Center, told New Scientist the patient “was extremely happy when he started to recover, because for years, no one believed him.

“The police, doctors, nurses and even his family told him he wasn’t telling the truth, that he must be a closet drinker,” he said.

“Now he is off antidepressants, he’s back at work and he’s finally getting on with his life,” Malik said.

No word on whether or not that includes happy hour on Friday.

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