Man kept getting drunk without drinking. Docs found brewer’s yeast in his guts

Enlarge / Pints of frothy beer sit on a bar at the Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany, on Thursday, Sept. 26, 2019. (credit: Getty | Bloomberg)

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.

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