Her body makes its own alcohol; now she needs a liver transplant

Sara Lefebvre’s body creates alcohol from the sugar she consumes, and it’s killing her.

Lefebvre, 38, has auto-brewery syndrome. ABS, or gut fermentation syndrome. She would pass out, fall down and break bones, even when she’d had nothing to drink. Breathalyzery fungi in the gastrointestinal tract,” researchers wrote in their 2019 study published in BMJ Open Gastrenterology. “Patients with this condition become inebriated and suffer all the medical and social implications of alcoholism, including arrest for drunken driving.”

Lefebvre began experiencing symptoms in her early 20s, Metro News reported. She would pass out, fall down and break bones, even when she’d had nothing to drink. Breathalyzer tests would register alcohol in her blood more than six times the legal limit.

Finally diagnosed with ABS in February 2020, the Connecticut woman is staking her life on on a new antifungal drug, Micafungin. That’s because her liver is now failing, and as long as there is alcohol in her system is above normal, no hospital will operate.

“If this new medication doesn’t work, I’m going to die,” she said. “It has been so upsetting, not just because of what I’m facing but because so many doctors don’t believe auto-brewery syndrome is a real condition.”

Her condition has improved since she cut out sugar and carbs, which her body was turning into alcohol.

“I used to love sugary things like SweeTarts, but now I have a very limited diet — scrambled egg for breakfast and green leafy vegetables with meat for dinner,” she told Metro.

A South Carolina man suffering from ABS was treated with antifungal drugs and resumed his normal life after a year and half.

The man was pulled over for drunken driving and registered more than twice the legal limit on a breathalyzer.

The South Carolina man wasn’t the first case of auto-brewery syndrome. Police dropped DUI charges against a New York woman in 2016 after doctors were able to prove her body, too, is a brewery.

“This is a condition that is treatable with dietary modifications, appropriate antifungal therapy, and possibly probiotics,” the researchers in the 2019 study wrote.