Human body brewery

Humans have a long history of consuming alcohol. With the earliest record of us drinking alcohol coming from China about 9,000 years ago, you could even say that alcohol is in our DNA. But what if your body was producing its own alcohol?

"Sorry officer, I'm not drink-driving, my body makes its own alcohol"

Some microbes in our intestines produce alcohol when breaking down food, then the liver takes care of this by-product in the same way it does any alcohol. However, a study from Amsterdam University Medical Centre found that the body's natural alcohol production can be increased in overweight people, putting strain on the liver.

Max Nieuwdorp, Professor of Internal Medicine at Amsterdam, puts the amount of alcohol produced in the gut of overweight patients as “equivalent to almost half a litre of whisky", citing a change in acidity as the thing disrupting the microbiome to this extent. Meanwhile the liver "has to work hard to breakdown the alcohol, and that is done by storing it as fat. This causes people to develop a fatty liver disease that can eventually become inflamed and lead to serious conditions", such as liver failure and heart disease.

In very rare cases, excessive production of alcohol in the body can lead to the point of intoxication, known as Auto-Brewery Syndrome (ABS). There are a range of possible causes, and as the breakdown of alcohol in the body can take place in the gut or the bladder, the condition has not been well researched. But people have occasionally been known to use the condition as an excuse for drunk driving charges. Sometimes this has proven successful, but the rarity of ABS and lack of research into the condition means it’s unlikely they were confidently telling the truth!

Alcohol isn’t the best thing to put in your system, but it is thanks to our livers that we can enjoy it. The liver’s job is to process and break down chemicals in our blood, including alcohol, so the rest of the body can properly use or get rid of them. The liver also has the ability to grow back if you lose part of it - very unusual for a human body part. However, it can only go so fast which is why it’s important to drink responsibly (also so you don’t embarrass yourself too much on the town).

By studying the liver and this rare condition, including by developing ways to control the gut bacteria in ABS afflicted patients, Nieuwdorp wants to create better treatments for liver disease sufferers.

by Louis Davies @louis.on.air

Find your science tribe. Sign up to our mailing list below for Science and Sip events and experiments to try at home!

Sources:

Amsterdam UMC. (2024) Studying alcohol production in the intestines of overweight patients. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1040496

Logan B, K., Jones A, W. (2000) Endogenous Ethanol ‘Auto-Brewery Syndrome’ as a Drunk-Driving Defence Challenge. Medicine, Science and the Law. 40(3):206-215. doi:10.1177/002580240004000304

Penn Museum (2024). The Earliest Alcoholic Beverage in the World. Available at: https://www.penn.museum/research/project.php?pid=12#:~:text=Chemical%20analyses%20recently%20confirmed%20that,in%20the%20Yellow%20River%20Valley