A man in his mid-40s was found unresponsive at home in Switzerland with a blood alcohol level high enough to explain his collapse. His partner told doctors he had not been drinking. His physicians concluded the partner was most likely right, and that the alcohol had been brewed inside his own gut after a routine antibiotic for pneumonia disturbed his intestinal microbes.
The case, published Sept. 8 in Oxford Medical Case Reports by physicians at Luzerner Kantonsspital in Sursee, describes a relapse of auto-brewery syndrome, a rare condition in which gut microorganisms ferment carbohydrates into ethanol. The man had gone about two years without symptoms before the episode.
