An upstate New York woman beats her drunk-driving charges due to her health condition called "auto-brewery syndrome," which increases the yeast level in her blood.
According to Fox 59, the woman's lawyer, attorney Joseph Marusak submitted the evidence to a Buffalo judge proving that the woman's body is a brewery. The condition brings the woman's blood-alcohol level at four times more than the legal limit. She didn't know about this rare health condition until she was arrested.
After given proof that the woman has a rare condition, the judge dismissed the DWI charges against her. The woman is now following a low-carbohydrate diet to keep her blood-alcohol at a manageable level.
WTNH reported that the rare health condition is also called gut fermentation syndrome. This was first discovered and documented in Japan back in the 1970s. Medical and legal experts in the United States claim that this syndrome is increasingly used in drunk-driving cases.
"At first glance, it seems like a get-out-of-jail-free card," said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. "But it's not that easy. Courts tend to be skeptical of such claims. You have to be able to document the syndrome through recognized testing."
Inquisitr wrote that the 35-year-old schoolteacher was arrested in Buffalo in October 2014. She was driving erratically and looked intoxicated, which was why she was pulled over. When the breathalyzer test was administered on the woman, her blood alcohol level registered 0.33 percent. The legal blood alcohol level in New York is 0.08 percent.
According to the arresting officer, the woman had bloodshot eyes and slurred speech. She also failed certain sobriety tests. However, according to experts, the rare health condition is real.
There are sceptics, however, who believe that people are just using it to beat DWI charges. They claim that it requires high amount of yeast to have alcohol quantities enough to make people drunk.
