A WOMAN visited hospital seven times complaining of slurred speech and extreme tiredness, but kept being told she was just drunk. Called auto-brewery syndrome, the metabolic condition causes fungi in the gut create alcohol through fermentation and makes sufferers seem like they've had a few too many. Over two years, the woman, from Toronto, Canada, visited the emergency department multiple times, complaining of extreme daytime sleepiness and slurred speech. It wasn't until her seventh A&E visit that an emergency doctor thought auto-brewery syndrome might be the cause of the woman's strange symptoms. A brewery worker was recently slapped with a drink-and-drive charge before it was discovered he suffers with ‘auto-brewery syndrome’.
