TORONTO -- A U.S. woman who doctors thought was hiding a drinking problem actually had a condition that turned her bladder into an 鈥渁uto-brewery,鈥� according to a new case report.
The 61-year-old woman denied ever drinking alcohol, according to the report in the . After further tests, it was discovered that her bladder was producing an 鈥渋ntoxicating鈥� amount of ethanol, the main active ingredient in alcoholic beverages.
The woman was on her way to getting on the liver transplant list on the advice of doctors who thought she was a problem drinker. She was denied a transplant after her urine repeatedly tested positive for alcohol.
But she wasn鈥檛 drinking, she said, and was not presenting as drunk, according to the report. Instead, yeast in the bladder was fermenting sugar into the alcohol as a result of 鈥減oorly controlled diabetes,鈥� doctors found.
鈥淧reviously, clinicians at another hospital advised her to obtain treatment for alcohol addiction instead of placing her on their center鈥檚 liver transplant waitlist,鈥� the report said. 鈥淚nitially, our encounters were similar, leading our clinicians to believe that she was hiding an alcohol use disorder.鈥�
It鈥檚 not the first 鈥渁uto-brewery鈥� diagnosis in medicine. Traditional auto-brewery syndrome (ABS) occurs in the gut. Doctors proposed dubbing the woman鈥檚 condition 鈥渂ladder fermentation syndrome鈥� or simply 鈥渦rinary auto-brewery syndrome.鈥�
"I鈥檓 happy to demystify the situation, and that鈥檚 helpful to her because this alcohol abuse diagnosis has been haunting her," Kenichi Tamama, one of the report authors, told .
The report further explained that the woman鈥檚 case 鈥渄emonstrates how easy it is to overlook signals that urinary auto-brewery syndrome may be present鈥� and recommends standardized guidelines for monitoring alcohol abstinence.
