What might have been a gift from the gods for Homer Simpson was a scourge for one Texas man.
The 61-year-old, whose name was not reported, was suffering from an abundance of brewer’s yeast in his gut, National Public Radio reports. As a result, all he had to do to get drunk was eat starchy foods, like pasta or bagels.
“He would get drunk out of the blue—on a Sunday morning after being at church, or really, just anytime,” Barabara Cordell, the academic who got to the bottom of his beer gut, so to speak, told NPR. “His wife was so dismayed about it that she even bought a Breathalyzer.”
After keeping the man away from booze and under observation for 24 hours, he was fed carbohydrate rich foods. His blood alcohol level ticked up dramatically.
The brewer’s yeast that infected his gut is in all kinds of food, according to NPR, including bread, wine, and, of course, beer. Usually it passes right through us but in rare cases—particularly when a round of antibiotics has wiped out the yeast-fighting bacteria in the gut—the yeast can stick around for the long term.
My own personal brewery always sounded like fun but this is perhaps a step too far.