This Woman Gets Drunk Without Drinking, Doctors Find Her Gut Produces Alcohol

A 50-year-old woman in Canada has a rare syndrome for which she gets intoxicated even without drinking alcohol. The doctors treating her have found that her gut produces alcohol, for which she feels intoxicated without getting drunk.

A report about this rare case was published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal on Monday.

Doctors at the University of Toronto and Mount Sinai diagnosed the woman with auto-brewery syndrome. The fungi in the gut of a person with this rare syndrome create alcohol through fermentation.

For two years the woman suffered from extreme intoxication and slurred speech and, despite not drinking alcohol. She always had elevated blood alcohol levels and smell of alcohol on her breath.