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A New York woman just got out of a DWI because her gut makes alcohol on its own

A Western New York schoolteacher just had a DWI charge dismissed because doctors testified that she couldn't help but have alcohol in her system, according to a report by BuzzFeed News.

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Her body was producing its own booze, adding to whatever else she drank.

She'd reportedly had a few drinks an hour and a half before driving, but not nearly enough to equal the 0.33% blood alcohol content (BAC) that Buffalo News reports Hamburg County Police found when they administered a breathalyzer (that's more than four times the legal limit of .08%).

oktoberfest woman beer
REUTERS/Michael Dalder

The woman reportedly has a condition known as gut fermentation syndrome or "auto-brewery syndrome."

The extremely rare condition is caused by the unlikely presence of a high concentration of yeast in someone's stomach. That yeast consumes sugar and converts it into alcohol inside the gut itself. That alcohol can than be absorbed by the intestines and make its way into the bloodstream, where it can intoxicate the patient in question.

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Brewers depend on yeast to eat sugars while making beer, which is where the "auto-brewery" term comes from.

Researchers aren't entirely sure how too much yeast makes its way into someone's gut then proliferates and sets up colonies there — there's not a ton of research on the condition or its causes.

Those yeast concentrations could appear after an infection, which was a common explanation for one documented case of gut fermentation syndrome in 2013.

This condition made the rounds in the news then because a 61-year-old Texas man started suddenly getting drunk out of the blue — without the need to consume any booze to get there. Even after doctors isolated him and made sure there was no booze around, his BAC would naturally rise.

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Barabara Cordell, the dean of nursing at Panola College in Carthage, Texas, published a case study on his condition. She reported that treating the man with antifungal medication and a low carb diet resolved the situation.

This was one of several studies documenting cases of auto-brewery syndrome.

Check out the full story at BuzzFeed News.

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