A short explanatory segment from Dr. Tabatha Barber's YouTube video describing how certain gut yeasts and bacteria can ferment dietary sugars (including sugars from simple carbs and some vegetables) into ethanol. The speaker links chronic low-level endogenous alcohol production from microbial overgrowth to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and notes rare case reports of markedly elevated blood alcohol levels.
There are certain yeast, and then there's also certain bacteria in our gut. And when we eat sugar, whether it's straight up sugar or in the form of simple carbohydrates or even some complex carbohydrates like healthy vegetables, those yeast and bacteria that are supposed to live in little small amounts, that's what they feed on. And when they eat those sugars, which is essentially carbohydrates broken down, their byproduct are ethanol, alcohol. There have been case reports of people having elevated blood alcohol levels to the point where they're impaired. When this is extreme, that's not common. But what's common is for that small amount of alcohol being produced by yeast overgrowth all of the time to be the contributing factor for this non alcoholic fatty liver disease.
