Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:03 Welcome to brain junk. I'm Amy Barton and I'm Trey sicker and it's time for a brainstorm. So this story comes from an article I read about a man arrested for driving while intoxicated, a DWI in 2011. Okay. He claimed he had not been drinking, but when the cops did a breathalyzer test, his blood alcohol clearly indicated he was drunk. Yeah. And he's like, I'm not drunk, I haven't been drinking. So they took him to the hospital and they did a blood test and they probably had to look at the cops for eye-roll strain because like really you haven't been drinking, right, exactly. His blood alcohol level was 200 milligrams per deciliter. Now if you're driving and you have a 0.08% blood alcohol level, that's too high. Okay. Point Oh eight is 80 milligrams. <inaudible> state limit. Yup. 80 milligrams per deciliter. This guy was 200 200 milligrams per deciliter.
Speaker 0 00:57 Insane. Like he should be passed out. Well, so they're like, dude, you're drunk. Yeah. And, uh, while he did complain about brain fog and uncharacteristic aggressive behavior and chronic fatigue and depression, he absolutely refused to admit that he had been drinking while he was drunk, but just not how you think. So he had something called auto brewery syndrome, also known as gut fermentation syndrome. Oh, that's a bummer. Yeah. So first of all, it's very rare. So don't, this isn't like Google where you go Google a medical problem and think you've got it. Okay. It's very rare and it usually only happens in people with other health problems, but let's talk about what happened to our guy. So he was taking antibiotics for a thumb injury and all. When you take antibiotics, it kills the bad bacteria, but also kills all your gut bacteria. When that all died off, fungal yeast began to grow in his lower GI track. This one can also happen with certain kinds of bacteria, but this guy had fungus and every time he ate carbohydrates, so he had potato, or if he had pizza or whatever, these fungus's would ferment the carbohydrates into alcohol and then his body was absorbing that alcohol. I would be plastered if this was my problem, two thirds of the time. Oh my God.
Speaker 0 02:19 All right. Here's the crazy thing. The man who was pulled over for his DWI, sometimes his blood alcohol level was 500 milligrams per deciliter. And he was conscious. Well, here's the thing, once you hit about 500 they're like, Oh, you could die. Yeah. And what was crazy is they put them on antifungals and a no-carb diet for six weeks. But before they did that, they tested him. Of course, you know, cause scientists. Yup. So they'd be like, here's a pizza. You know, we're going to take your blood. You know, we're going to take your blood now and check it. And it would be down in the forties or the 50s and then they would give him some high carbohydrate meal. Wait an hour and he'd 200 300 400 Oh my gosh. If I got that diagnosis, I would just be in tears. Like diabetic. You can work around, you can have some carbs. Not that guy. No. Wow. No carbs. Antifungals. After six weeks he was back to normal. Oh my goodness. So he also could fall off the wagon, but it's like I had a grilled cheese. So good.
Speaker 0 03:24 I am sure there was a lot of, we don't believe you give us the bottles, dude. Yes. And that was something that even they mentioned in the scientific papers was that that's commonly not diagnosed because they keep saying I'm not drinking and no one believes them. Yeah. Cause unless you're in a scientific environment where they can verify, yep. You've just been sitting here, there's no, yeah. And now you're drunk. It's like a bad episode of house. So just, wow. Well if you want to hear more, we're on Facebook and Instagram as brain junk podcast and you can find us on Twitter as at my brain junk trace. And I will catch you next time when we share more of everything you never knew. You wanted to know. And I guarantee you, you will not be bored.
