Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/03/microbes-in-womans-gut-brew-alcohol-making-her-drunk-without-drinking.html
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Sounds lie the start to a good sci fi story. The end of the world wasn’t nuclear, it was this bug going ultra-contagious and a simple kiss that transferred this lady’s gut biome to another, who spread it with a sneeze and then those folks spread it and before you know it the entire world, babies included, were drunk off their asses and things went downhill fast.
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Shambling and staggering, looking for carbs to eat.
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There’s definitely a joke in there about the infected calling out for “graaaaaains”
ETA: puns aside, I’m glad she’s alright! What a weird series of events for that scenario to develop. Biology can be bonkers.
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That’s the wrong side of the digestive system…
Also very good that she wasn’t pregnant!
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I’ve always wondered what this condition does to your liver, though. It’s the equivalent of constant drinking, over extended periods of time.
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I’ll go with your idea over mine, a slight variation of the Handmaid’s tale where the end result is an alcohol making variant of Axlotl tanks.
Also, maybe a burp rather than kiss?
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Well…I was a daily blackout drinker for about two years, and my liver is fine today (I stopped drinking in 2006). At the time I went to rehab, my liver enzymes were off, but my liver was nowhere close to failure. So I suspect a condition like this would have to go untreated for a very long time to cause liver damage.
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The clinical research I’ve seen indicates binge drinking is more harmful to the liver than low-level but more frequent drinking. And, like many chronic conditions, genetics plays a pretty big role.
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Fewer
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Systemic antibiotics can do all kinds of crazy things. I had moderate but cystic acne throughout my mid-20s through early 30s. I tried all the OTC crap at the time and none worked.
Finally went and saw a dermatologist when I was around 35 and she prescribed systemic antibiotics. And it worked. Acne went away by magic. Around that same time started to get crazy scratches on my thighs and around my groin. Turns out it was a yeast infection in my groin that was spurred by the antibiotics (bacteria keep yeast under control I was told). It led me to scratch to the point of bleeding on my thighs every night while asleep. Couldn’t figure out what was going on until I set up a camera overnight and saw my somnambulist behavior. Immediately stopped the antibiotics and the acne stayed away, and within a week the scratching went away.
I have been very wary of using antibiotics ever since. Using them only when necessary is my thought.
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I’m sorry, but was someone suffering from auto-brewery syndrome when they composed this sentence?
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(Not even being snarky here)
Imagine quitting drinking for religious reasons, and then your body starts miraculously making its own alcohol. Even if there’s a medical/scientific explanation, that’s got to either mess with (or maybe really reinforce) your belief system.
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Way too many variables to make that predictable. Resiliency varies as dramatically as tolerance. Some folks can have changes in liver function after one night’s overindulgence. Some can do it a lifetime without damage. Like most things in medicine, it ain’t that simple.
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I would have loved this in my 20’s. Too poor to buy beer? Just eat some potatoes.
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Fewer instead of “less”, carb instead of “card”, that whole eliminated/put out of business nonsense; Geez, folks, does nobody edit anything here anymore?
I don’t know, but they sure as shit don’t read the comments before they swoop in with their grammar corrections…
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You came back from a two-year hiatus for that?
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my OCD is flaring…
