A woman from Hamburg, New York who blew a 0.33 on a breathalyzer has beaten her drunk driving charge—but not for reasons you might think. As it turns out, she has the world’s best excuse: Her body produces its own alcohol naturally, and she had no idea.
The woman, whose name has not been revealed, suffers from what is known as auto-brewery syndrome.
Self-sufficient booze machine
“I had never heard of auto-brewery syndrome before this case,” her attorney, Joseph Marusak, told CNN. “But I knew something was amiss when the hospital police took the woman wanted to release her immediately because she wasn’t exhibiting any symptoms.”
“That prompts me to get on the Internet and see if there is any sort of explanation for a weird reading,” he added. “Up pops auto-brewery syndrome and away we go.”
This condition, which is also known as gut-fermentation syndrome, is extremely rare; its first description by medical professionals was only a little over 100 years ago, although it wasn’t really recognized until the 1970s, and didn’t gain popular recognition until 2013.
How does this happen?
What seems to happen in those with the syndrome is this: An overabundance of Saccharomyces cerevisiae—the yeast used to make bread and beer—reacts with sugars in the small intestine, causing the yeast to produce alcohol. This alcohol is then absorbed into the bloodstream, although many affected by this syndrome don’t feel any effects.
“I’m in touch with about 30 people who believe they have this same syndrome, about 10 of them are diagnosed with it,” Panola College Dean of Nursing Barbara Cordell, who has studied the syndrome for years, told CNN. “They can function at alcohol levels such as 0.30 and 0.40 when the average person would be comatose or dying. Part of the mystery of this syndrome is how they can have these extremely high levels and still be walking around and talking.”
Not a free pass
Gut-fermentation syndrome seems like an excuse that could be taken advantage of—or could it?
“At first glance, it seems like a get-out-of-jail-free card,” Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told the Guardian. “But it’s not that easy. Courts tend to be skeptical of such claims. You have to be able to document the syndrome through recognized testing.”
Which is exactly what the New York woman did. While she had been drinking prior to her charges, she had consumed no more than three drinks over a period of six hours—an amount that, for her size, should not have pushed her over the legal limit of 0.08. Instead, she blew more than four times that amount.
Eventually, the woman was referred to Cordell, who arranged to have the woman monitored by two nurses and a physician’s assistant for a day. They bore witness to the fact that she consumed no alcohol, and took blood samples to measure her blood alcohol content.
“At the end of the day, she had a blood-alcohol content of 0.36% without drinking any alcoholic beverages,” said Marusak.
Cordell later diagnosed her condition, and has since prescribed her a low-carb diet in an attempt to reduce the number of carbohydrates that can be fermented into alcohol—not that the woman will be able to feel the difference.
“She had no idea she had this condition. Never felt tipsy. Nothing,” said Marusak.
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Image credit: Thinkstock
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