Woman beats DUI rap with claim her body brews alcohol

Lawyer Joseph Marusak chose to investigate after his DWI client insisted she consumed only a few drinks on the day she registered a blood alcohol level that was four times the legal limit.

It might seem a bit far-fetched, but a drink driver in NY has had her case dismissed because her body turns food into alcohol.

Medical and legal experts say the condition, also known as gut fermentation syndrome, is being raised more frequently as a defence in drink-driving cases.

“She can register a blood alcohol content that would have you or I falling down drunk, but she can function”, Marusak told local newspaper The Buffalo News. The woman was charged with driving while intoxicated when a breath test showed her blood-alcohol content to be 0.33%.

But the woman apparently suffers from a condition called “gut fermentation”, or “auto-brewery syndrome”, -it’s a rare disorder in which high yeast levels ferment carbohydrates inside a person’s intestines. “We hired a local pharmacologist who said that a woman of her size and weight having four drinks in that period of time should be between 0.01 and 0.05 blood alcohol levels”.

In his defense investigation, Marusak found Dr. Barbara Cordell, a researcher in Texas who published medical studies on Auto-Brewery Syndrome.

Somewhere driving around NY is a woman whose body is a brewery.

The woman was able to get the charges dismissed after her lawyer presented evidence by a doctor that she had the rare syndrome, according to the AP.

When, he tried to find an explanation for the mysterious syndrome on Internet, auto-brewery syndrome popped up immediately. “Our officers did the right thing in getting her off the road”, Wickett said.

Many people who have the condition feel drunk, but Marusak said that’s not true of his client.

Stranger still was the fact that until she reached risky levels of alcohol in her system, between 0.30 and 0.40, she didn’t exhibit any signs of intoxication. The Erie County District Attorney’s office says it will seek reinstatement of the charge on appeal. He said the case had been sealed since the charges were dropped.

For now, Marusak’s client is receiving anti-fungal medications and was put on a yeast-free diet with absolutely none of the following – alcohol and sugar – and extremely low carbohydrate intake.