Doctors solve strange case of the brewing bladder
Experiment shows the woman was telling the truth and hadn't had a drink - despite her urine tests
25th February 2020
US doctors have reported the unusual case of a woman whose bladder naturally brews alcohol, labelling her condition ‘urinary auto-brewery syndrome’.
The 61-year-old US woman had been on a waiting list for a liver transplant, but urine tests for alcohol repeatedly came back positive, despite her assertions that she had not had a drink.
The Pittsburgh doctors eventually devised a laboratory experiment to demonstrate that yeast in her bladder could ferment sugar to produce ethanol, they report in the Annals of Internal Medicine.