Submitted via IRC for Bytram
Man kept getting drunk without drinking. Docs found brewer's yeast in his guts
After years of inexplicably getting drunk without drinking alcohol, having mood swings and bouts of aggression, landing a DWI charge on the way to work one morning, and suffering a head injury in a drunken fall, an otherwise healthy 46-year-old North Carolina man finally got confirmation of having alcohol-fermenting yeasts overrunning his innards, getting him sloshed any time he ate carbohydrate-laden meals.
Through the years, medical professionals and police officers refused to believe he hadn't been drinking. They assumed the man was lying to hide an alcohol problem. Meanwhile, he went to an untold number of psychiatrists, internists, neurologists, and gastroenterologists searching for answers.
Those answers only came after he sought help from a support group online and then contacted a group of researchers at Richmond University Medical Center in Staten Island, New York.
By then, it was September of 2017—more than seven years after his saga began. The New York researchers finally confirmed that he had a rarely diagnosed condition called "auto-brewery syndrome."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @02:59PM (16 children)
Next question.
Seriously, if you have something broken that is easy to identify, then doctors will help you. But actually looking for something that they have no idea about, most will be completely stumped and then blame it on the patient instead of doing anything about it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday October 26 2019, @03:06PM (6 children)
That's why we need advanced robots, tricorders, Watson, etc. to diagnose patients.
Joe Doctor doesn't have time to read the latest 100,000 papers and decide what's bullshit.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday October 26 2019, @03:32PM
He's too busy boozing at the local bar after his day's work, like the rest of us who can't brew our own.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday October 26 2019, @05:09PM (4 children)
Short answer - no. Both, robots and doctors, are looking for the most probable issue because it is the easiest way to get insurance pay for it. Doctors do know about it but violate their oath anyway.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday October 26 2019, @05:30PM (3 children)
Bad programming because of money? Still easier to reprogram the bot than the fleshbag.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @05:32PM
Hey! My mother was a fleshbag!
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Saturday October 26 2019, @09:36PM
>Still easier to reprogram the bot than the fleshbag.
Unless systemd is involved.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by legont on Saturday October 26 2019, @09:41PM
May not be the case. For example, certain diseases are local - geographically and culturally - and local doctors know better. While it is possible to find a black middle eastern doctor of Jewish origins, good luck to get such software. Generally, life is way more complicated than any software of a foreseeable future. Besides, I hate robots.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday October 26 2019, @04:28PM (5 children)
Time for some whataboutism. What about the intellectual laziness of the cops? Wouldn't believe he wasn't an alcoholic, and dismissed him as a liar.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @05:06PM
"the intellectual laziness of the cops"
Yeah.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @06:58PM
Medical mysteries are not the main subject matter of the justice system. Cops have tools to measure if blood alcohol is high - yes? then guilty of being intoxicated. They didn't say of "guilty of drinking" - that's a not a crime at all. The crime is driving under influence. How you get that influence is not their problem. You may as well inject alcohol into your veins for all they care.
So this whataboutism is not really applicable here. What this dude can do is go to court to get his record expunged on medical grounds, but that's about it.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday October 26 2019, @09:44PM (1 child)
You have quite an incentive to lie to the police. Not so with your doctor.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:44PM
Not really. Giving false statements is often much worse than saying nothing. If matters reach the point that a trial may be held, pleading guilty usually leads to lighter sentences than pleading not guilty and being found out as both guilty and a liar.
But then, saying almost nothing can be one of the best things to do. Only things to say are the formula questions, asking if you are being charged, and if so, with what, and if not, asking if you are free to go.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:21AM
Implicit assumption: cops do have intelligence (only it is the lazy kind).
Ummm... what?
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @04:38PM
Nobody expects to be their own micro brewery.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @03:17AM
And if you have single payer, the government gets to decide that you need to get your mind right, not better investigation.
No, seriously; that's what happens. You can get an opinion. You can get a second opinion. You can maybe get a third opinion, but after that the government can declare that your constant problem isn't their problem to pay for any more, and you have to get a judge or somebody to declare that you're in the right.
But it'll solve all the problems that matter, right?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday October 27 2019, @04:41AM
The problem here is that most of the time, those doctors have a really good idea about the problem. Hypochondria and malingering are way too common. The auto-brewery syndrome is probably already well-known enough that some people are already blaming their regular drunkenness on it.
You can't always trust the patient.
(Score: 3, Informative) by RandomFactor on Saturday October 26 2019, @03:21PM (5 children)
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=16/01/02/0323213 [soylentnews.org] School Teacher Beats Drunk Driving Charge after Proving that her Body Brews Alcohol
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=19/09/20/0328217 [soylentnews.org] Alcohol-Producing Gut Bacteria Could Cause Liver Damage Even in People Who Don't Drink
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 4, Insightful) by legont on Saturday October 26 2019, @05:16PM (3 children)
Yep, it is a well documented illness. Our legal system does not give a fuck and simply punishes the most probable target. It is, by the way, by design. No system can be fair and check all the cases. Hence the strategy of a common men - be the smallest, most difficult target. Let them idiots take the heat. After awhile, fascism takes root.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @06:44PM
unless
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @07:03PM
Legal system does give a fuck, but it's up to you to prove it's a medical condition *and* up to you to fix your medical condition. You are not allowed to drive under influence. How you get into the state of influence is immaterial. But with diagnosis ex post facto, you can at least indicate mitigating circumstances.
For example, driving fast to hospital because you are transporting a gravely ill person requiring medical attention. You are not allowed to speed, but these would be mitigating circumstances where you are less likely to get in trouble.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:25AM
The evidence presented so far require the additional qualifying of "well documented on SoylentNews illness".
If only those cops would read us!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 26 2019, @05:50PM
Never gets old, but most of the world aren't weird trivia hounds like us.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 26 2019, @05:06PM (6 children)
Is there a way I can intentionally develop this syndrome easily?
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday October 26 2019, @07:59PM (4 children)
I'd expect so, though it might take awhile.
Get a basic beer recipe. Mix it up, but drink it green. Ignore the bloat and gas resulting, and keep drinking.
I don't know how long it would take. It might take several batches. (Green means before the alcohol has killed off the yeast.)
P.S.: This is just my guess, but it would probably work. I didn't say it would be comfortable or quick, just easy.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Informative) by lentilla on Saturday October 26 2019, @11:59PM (1 child)
No, that won't work. (Well; it will; you just won't get much of a buzz from it. Read on.)
Most beer contains live yeast (unless the manufacturer has killed it). The ethanol in beer doesn't so much kill the yeast as simply slow it down, and the reason the beer stops fermenting is that the yeast has run out of nutrients. If you add more nutrients to beer out of a bottle, the yeast will reinvigorate and fermentation begins again.
Humans have been drinking beer (and eating bread, and yogurt, and so on) since the dawn of time. Most of us are mostly sober most of the time.
I suppose if you made a batch of beer and consumed it after the yeast had multiplied but before the nutrients were spent - yes, you might do a lot of belching - but your body would process it quickly. Add more nutrients and the process would start again but most people's digestive system is too fast for the fermentation to get very far. You'd get more tipsy by drinking the finished beer. It'd taste better, too :-)
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday October 27 2019, @12:19AM
I think your best bet would be to take such yeast and attempt to introduce them to your intestinal microbiome, i.e., shove them up your butt. You'd probably want something like an endoscope to really jam it up through your intestines, and there's probably a risk of infection or destroying your intestinal microbiome or developing strange sexual fetishes. Attempt at your own risk.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday October 27 2019, @06:29AM (1 child)
There has to be something that relates with strong doses of antibiotic in the first stages. Otherwise the yeast has too little chances to survive the competition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fraxinus-tree on Sunday October 27 2019, @11:12AM
Antibiotics are a good start, but not enough. You have to mess your digestive system enough so it will not kill off everything almost at the start (yeast is particularly sensitive to the low pH in the stomach). Try high dose of proton-pump inhibitor. (Antibiotic combination AND proton-pump inhibitor is how helicobacter infections are treated nowadays. I suppose they do something more to prevent exactly this outcome, but IANAPhysitian.) Well, YMMV. There are common cases where these medications are used for problems unrelated to each other.
You can also try to introduce the yeast to your gut from the "backend". Start by taking a bath of beer. Be sure to have someone to take you out if you mis-estimate the time needed.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Sunday October 27 2019, @04:07PM
There was an old lady from Rhyde
who ate a green apple and died.
The apple fermented
inside the lamented
and made cider inside her inside.
I'll get my coat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 27 2019, @11:39AM
True story, when I eat a ton of carbs I always feel like I have a hangover the next day. Back about 20 years ago ate brewers yeast as a dietary supplement on advice of a nutritionist. That was prior to gaining 120lbs and losing my sweet tooth cuz I cant handle the carby hangover. Wondering now if its all related.