Woman Claims her Body Brews its own Alcohol; Judge Dismisses DUI Charge

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A woman from New York has escaped a DUI charge by a thread when evidence showed that her body was brewing alcohol, People reports. The woman, who hailed from upstate New York, was found to be driving with a blood alcohol level of 0.40, which is four times the legal limit. She was found to have consumed four drinks between 12 p.m. and 6 p.m. A local pharmacologist found that a woman of her weight should have between 0.01 and 0.05 blood alcohol levels, not 0.40.

The woman was then taken to the hospital, where it was found that she had "auto-brewery syndrome," which is also known as gut-fermentation syndrome. According to CNN, it is a "rare medical condition can occur when abnormal amounts of gastrointestinal yeast convert common food carbohydrates into ethanol", which occurs in the small intestine, unlike the fermentation that occurs in the big intestine.

"I had never heard of auto-brewery syndrome before this case," Joseph Marusak, the woman's attorney told CNN. According to ABC News, the woman was reportedly a 35-year-old school teacher.

"I knew something was amiss when the hospital police took the woman to wanted to release her immediately because she wasn't exhibiting any symptoms," Marusak said. "That prompts me to get on the Internet and see if there is any sort of explanation for a weird reading. Up pops auto-brewery syndrome and away we go."

ABC News reports that according to George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, "At first glance, it seems like a get-out-of-jail-free card. 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."

This isn't the first case of "auto-brewery syndrome", but this may be the first case that got a woman out of a DUI charge. Back in 2013, NPR reported that a man from Texas, who did not have a drink on the day he went to the hospital, complained of dizziness. Nurses found his blood alcohol concentration was at 0.37. After running tests, he was found to have "auto-brewery syndrome". The patient also had an infection with Saccharomyces cerevisiae, in which yeast fermented in his gut every time he would consume starch.

According to Dr. Joseph Heitman, a microbiologist at Duke University, "Researchers have shown unequivocally that Saccharomyces can grow in the intestinal tract. ut it's still unclear whether it's associated with any disease."