Despite concerns about its safety, social media has popularized mouth taping as a home remedy for individuals with sleep-disordered breathing or mouth breathing. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a sleep disease marked by frequent breathing pauses caused by upper airway blockage. This reduction in airflow can lower oxygen levels, potentially leading to serious health conditions, including pulmonary and cardiovascular disorders. The authors conducted a literature search from February 1999 to February 2024 using MEDLINE, Embase, and Google Scholar in compliance with Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) criteria.
The inclusion criteria consisted of studies evaluating mouth taping or comparable treatments for adults and children with OSA or mouth breathing. Following the elimination of 120 studies for duplication and screening, 10 studies with 233 patients in total satisfied the requirements. Other studies found no benefits of mouth taping and raised concerns about the risk of asphyxiation in cases of nasal obstruction. The exclusion criteria included articles written in languages other than English and articles that used oral devices such as tongue-retaining devices or mandibular advancement devices without mouth taping. 24 studies passed full-text screening out of the 86 reviewed abstracts after 34 duplicates were automatically removed.
The mean or median age range in each study was 38–64 years. There were 233 patients in all the research that was part of this systematic review, with sample sizes ranging from 9 to 71 individuals. The lost air pressure from nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) due to patients opening their mouths as they sleep is known as “mouth leak,” and it shows pressure loss of up to 10% to 15%. When arousal occurs during NREM (non-rapid eye movement sleep), the maximal estimated ventilatory drive immediately following cortical arousal is known as the arousal threshold. Patients in the upper airway muscle dilator spray with tape group experienced fewer episodes per hour and a much higher arousal index than the placebo group.
Chin strapping was applied only during the initial two hours of sleep, but overall sleep time was reduced with chin strapping compared to patients during a diagnostic polysomnography (PSG) study. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale, used to assess the quality and risk of bias in these ten studies, revealed that all the mouth taping studies were found to have poor quality for various reasons. Four out of ten investigations highlighted the dangers of mouth taping in the context of nasal blockage or regurgitation, noting that sealing the mouth with tape or using chin straps could increase the risk of asphyxiation.
As per data, mouth taping as a social media phenomenon was responsible for decreasing mouth breathing. It shows adverse reactions in people with severe nasal blockage due to oral breathing. The concept of using mouth taping or other occlusive devices to treat OSA is not supported by the summative data from the selected studies in this systematic review. For all populations with disturbed breathing, mouth taping or oral occlusion is not an effective clinical strategy according to the available research.
Reference: Rhee J, Iansavitchene A, Mannala S, Graham ME, Rotenberg B. Breaking social media fads and uncovering the safety and efficacy of mouth taping in patients with mouth breathing, sleep disordered breathing, or obstructive sleep apnea: A systematic review. PLoS One. 2025;20(5):e0323643. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0323643
