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“I swear I haven’t been drinking, officer, I just have too much yeast in my gut.”
Yeah right.
Right?
Actually, it’s a true story! A man was pulled over for drunk driving, and although repeatedly claimed he had nothing to drink, blew well over the legal limit and was arrested. His family members didn’t believe him and accused him of being a closet drinker. For years he had been complaining of symptoms such as dizziness, brain fog and uncharacteristic aggression and seeing a psychiatrist for anti-depression medication, but it didn’t seem to be helping. And everything came to a head (pardon the beer joke) that fateful morning with the police officer.
His aunt encouraged him to have more testing done, and a specific strain of yeast was found in his upper small bowel and a pouch linking the junction of his small and large intestines: Saccharomyces cerevisiae, also known as brewer's yeast. Basically, this man had so much yeast in his gastrointestinal tract that he was literally creating his own in-house brew. He was prescribed an antifungal and told to stop eating carbs for six weeks. Eighteen months later, he was feeling great and eating normally again, without any symptoms of drunkenness [1].
While auto-brewery syndrome is quite rare, it’s a testament to the power of yeast that is left to grow out of control. Yeast, like alcohol, produces a byproduct of acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde tends to go after our glutathione stores--glutathione is the master antioxidant in the body capable of preventing damage to cells caused by free radicals, peroxides, lipid peroxides and heavy metals.
Acetaldehyde toxicity is the reason some of the symptoms of Candida overgrowth look similar to a hangover:
So, somewhat of a light-hearted story compared to the rest of this series on Candida, but the warning is still there. Candida overgrowth can be a serious issue and should be treated as such. Don’t let your yeast get out of control.