There are people out there who can get drunk without even so much as a sip of alcohol. It’s called auto brewery syndrome, or ABS. And new research is finally here to provide them with a believable, scientifically backed explanation that they can offer to cops in a pinch.
A study published this week in Nature Microbiology identifies the specific gut bacteria and biological pathways that cause ABS. It’s a rare disorder in which microbes ferment carbohydrates into ethanol inside the body, essentially turning a person’s own digestive system into a distillery that pumps alcohol directly into the bloodstream.
Everyone produces trace amounts of ethanol when we digest food. But people with ABS produce so much that it can cause them to actually become drunk.
How Does ABS Work?
Researchers analyzed stool samples from 22 people with ABS, their household partners, and healthy control participants. During symptom flare-ups, samples from ABS patients produced significantly more ethanol than those from the other groups.
The difference was so pronounced that the researchers say there could one day be a stool-sample-based diagnostic test for ABS as a result of this research.
The study also found that bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae spiked during episodes. Along with a sudden rise in enzymes associated with fermentation. Pinpointing exactly which microbes mixing together are responsible for triggering each individual patient’s self-fermenting drunken episodes, the findings establish a biological basis for the condition that one day researchers can build on.
The research also opens a pathway toward a potential treatment. One study participant experienced significant improvements after a fecal microbiota transplant. To put it simply, it’s a poop swap where a person with ABS gets their unhealthy gut bacteria replaced with healthier strains via donor poop.
After a second transplant paired with a different antibiotic regimen, the patient remained symptom-free for more than 16 months.
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