In short
- As of October 20, 2026, we found 18 published human studies that tested mouth tape, lip tape, an adhesive mouthpiece or a porous oral patch, plus 4 reviews and 5 relevant registered trials.
- The studies are small: the largest sleep study enrolled 71 adults, and fewer than half of the 18 were randomized.
- The most consistent signal is less snoring in mouth breathers, seen in a 2015 porous patch pilot of 30 adults and a 2022 study of 20 mouth breathers with mild sleep apnea.
- A 2025 randomized crossover trial of 62 people on CPAP found they used their machines 51.8 more minutes a day with mouth tape added.
- A 2009 randomized trial in 51 adults with asthma found nightly mouth taping made no difference to asthma control.
- The largest planned mouth tape trial, NCT06587256 at Johns Hopkins, aims to enroll about 100 adults who snore and lists an estimated completion date of October 2030.
The research on mouth taping is real but thin. Most studies are small, many have no comparison group, and a 2025 systematic review rated every study it included as poor quality. Within those limits, the most consistent finding is less snoring in people who breathe through their mouths at night, and the best-designed recent study, a 2025 randomized trial, found that people on CPAP used their machines longer with mouth tape added. A 2009 asthma trial found no benefit, and nothing so far shows that tape treats sleep apnea. This page lists every study, review and registered trial we found, with links, so you can check each one yourself.
Last checked: October 20, 2026. We searched PubMed and ClinicalTrials.gov on this date. For plain-language walk-throughs of the main studies, see our research roundup and mouth taping facts and statistics.
What does the mouth taping research show so far?
Mouth taping research shows a small, mostly positive but low-quality body of evidence: 18 published human studies, 4 reviews and 5 relevant registered trials as of October 20, 2026. The clearest results are for snoring in mouth breathers and for CPAP use, while asthma control did not improve.
Research: limited (what this means)Here is the short version of what the tables below contain.
- Snoring fell sharply in two before-and-after studies of mouth breathers: a 2015 porous patch pilot (30 adults) and a 2022 tape study (20 mouth breathers with mild sleep apnea).
- In a 2025 randomized crossover trial, 62 people on CPAP used their machines 51.8 more minutes a day with tape, with less dryness and fewer night awakenings. Our guide to mouth tape and CPAP covers it in detail.
- A 2009 randomized trial in 51 adults with asthma found no change in peak flow or symptoms. More in mouth tape and asthma.
- Some people keep breathing through taped lips. Two Taiwanese studies recorded "mouth puffing" under tape, and it was more common in people with severe sleep apnea.
- A 2024 study that closed the mouth by hand during sleep endoscopy found airflow improved overall but got worse in heavy mouth breathers with a blockage behind the soft palate. That study didn't use tape, but it's a key reason doctors want people screened first.
Which published studies have tested mouth taping?
The 18 studies below applied mouth tape, lip tape, an adhesive mouthpiece or a porous oral patch to people and compared results with and without it. Most were done during sleep; four were short awake lab sessions that used tape to force nose breathing. They're in order of publication year.
| Year | Journal | Who took part (n) | Design | What was measured | Main finding | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Eur Respir J | People on long-term nasal bilevel ventilation with mouth leak (9) | Two nights in random order, mouth taped on one | Air leak, CO2, sleep stages | Leak fell from 0.35 to 0.06 L/s; arousals fell from 35.0 to 13.9 an hour; REM sleep rose from 12.9% to 21.1% | PubMed |
| 2006 | J Physiol | Healthy adults (8) | Randomized crossover, awake: 2 hours taped mouth vs nose clip | Airway moisture, surface tension of airway lining fluid | Airway moisture rose with nose breathing and nearly vanished with mouth breathing | PubMed |
| 2008 | Respirology | Adults with mild asthma (8) | Two days, awake: 1 hour tape over lips vs nose clip | Lung function (FEV1) | Lung function held steady with tape and fell with mouth breathing | PubMed |
| 2009 | Respir Med | Adults with symptomatic asthma (51) | Randomized single-blind crossover, 4 weeks each | Peak flow, asthma symptoms | No difference on any measure; 36 found taping acceptable | PubMed |
| 2015 | Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg | Adults with mild sleep apnea who sleep open-mouthed (30) | Before and after, no control group | Snoring, AHI, sleepiness | Median snoring index fell from 146.7 to 40.0 an hour; AHI from 12.0 to 7.8 | PubMed |
| 2019 | Chest | Adults with sleep apnea on oronasal CPAP (13; tape in 6) | Physiology study under light sedation | Airflow, airway size | Differences between full-face and nasal CPAP disappeared when tape sealed the mouth | PubMed |
| 2019 | J Cogn | University students (15 and 36) | Two awake lab experiments: tape vs nose plug vs neither | Visual search speed | Hard searches were slower during mouth breathing in the second experiment | PubMed |
| 2020 | Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol | Adults with sleep apnea who mouth-breathe (18) | Sleep endoscopy before and after commercial mouth strips | Airway obstruction | 7 of 18 improved by at least one grade | PubMed |
| 2022 | Ann Am Thorac Soc | Adults with sleep apnea (21) | Randomized crossover pilot, adhesive mouthpiece with and without a dental device | AHI | Mouthpiece plus dental device beat the dental device alone (5.6 vs 10.5); mouthpiece alone made no significant change | PubMed |
| 2022 | Healthcare | Mouth breathers with mild sleep apnea (20) | Before and after, 1 week, no control group | Snoring index, AHI, oxygen | 13 of 20 cut snoring by half or more; median snoring index fell 47% | PubMed |
| 2023 | Sleep Breath | Adults with sleep complaints (18; 10 had a lab sleep study) | Device test, everyone taped | Mouth puffing under tape | People puffed air through taped lips, and this tracked with breathing events | PubMed |
| 2023 | Nat Sci Sleep | Adults with and without sleep apnea (71) | Two home nights, untaped then taped | Oxygen dips, mouth puffing | Oxygen dips improved with tape in 30 of 58 analyzed | PubMed |
| 2024 | Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol | Adults with sleep apnea (10) | Randomized blinded drug trial; one arm nose-only via chinstrap or tape | AHI | No systematic change; tape not tested alone | PubMed |
| 2024 | JAMA Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg | Snorers without sleep apnea and their partners (50 couples) | Randomized trial: dental device vs four-part package including mouth tape | Partner-rated snoring | 91% responded to the dental device and 58% to the package; tape's own effect can't be separated | PubMed |
| 2025 | Q J Exp Psychol | Adult volunteers (n not in abstract) | Registered report, awake: tape vs nose clip | Word memory | No memory advantage for nose breathing | PubMed |
| 2025 | Sleep Med | One patient with severe sleep apnea on PAP (1) | Case report | Sleep consolidation | Authors report better-consolidated sleep with tape added to PAP | PubMed |
| 2025 | J Clin Sleep Med | Mouth breathers with sleep apnea on CPAP (62) | Randomized crossover, 30 days each | CPAP use, sleepiness, snoring, dryness | 51.8 more minutes of CPAP a day; 17.6% more nights of 4+ hours; side effects reported | PubMed |
| 2025 | Adv Respir Med | Women with dysfunctional breathing (14) | Unblinded randomized trial, 6 weeks of breathing exercises with or without nightly tape | Heart rate variability, stress | Tape group improved on one heart rate variability measure; stress no different between groups; no side effects | PubMed |
AHI is the apnea-hypopnea index, the number of breathing pauses and shallow breaths an hour. Where a study reported changes in AHI, it was in small groups, mostly with mild sleep apnea and no control group. Those numbers don't make mouth tape a sleep apnea treatment, and every review below says so.
What do the systematic reviews say?
The systematic reviews of mouth taping agree that the studies are few, small and varied, with some positive signals for snoring and sleep breathing and real safety questions when the nose is blocked. Four reviews cover mouth taping; one of them looks at it only as part of breathing retraining for asthma.
| Year | Journal | Scope | Studies included | Main conclusion | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | AHRQ Comparative Effectiveness Review | Breathing retraining for asthma (not a mouth taping review) | Trials of breathing techniques, 1990 to 2011 | The only harms found for breathing retraining were minor annoyances linked to mouth taping | PubMed |
| 2025 | Am J Otolaryngol | Scoping review of mouth taping during sleep, plus 50 TikTok videos | 9 of 177 records | Literature markedly heterogeneous; some research suggests benefit in sleep apnea, snoring and bilevel ventilation; none in asthma | PubMed |
| 2025 | PLOS One | Systematic review of mouth taping and similar methods, 1999 to 2024 | 10 studies, 213 patients (2 used chin straps) | Two studies improved sleep apnea markers; others found no difference; possible risk of asphyxiation with a blocked nose | PubMed |
| 2026 | OTO Open | Systematic review and meta-analysis of nasal obstruction and mouth taping | Nasal obstruction studies pooled; 2 mouth taping studies described in words | A blocked nose raised AHI by 13.78 events an hour; too little mouth taping data to pool | PubMed |
Which mouth taping trials are registered?
Five trials on ClinicalTrials.gov use tape or an adhesive mouthpiece over the lips as the intervention or as a named part of it. Only one, the Johns Hopkins study, is a dedicated mouth tape trial that hasn't finished.
| NCT number | Title | Status | Condition | Enrollment | Start date | Results posted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NCT02738255 | Effect of Added Varnum Mouthpiece on Pharyngeal Collapsibility and Sleep Apnea Severity in Mouth Breathers | Completed | Obstructive sleep apnea | 26 (actual) | June 2, 2016 | Yes |
| NCT05404438 | Mouth Breathing Habits Improvement Intervention | Completed | Obstructive sleep apnea | 24 (actual) | September 9, 2018 | No |
| NCT05756647 | Mandibular Advancement vs Home Treatment for Primary Snoring | Completed | Snoring | 100 (actual) | November 7, 2022 | Yes |
| NCT07353242 | The Effect of Buteyko Breathing Technique on Asthma Patients | Completed | Asthma | 90 (actual) | October 15, 2024 | No |
| NCT06587256 | Study to Examine the Effect of Silicone Mouth Tape on Snoring and Mild Sleep Apnea | Recruiting | Mild obstructive sleep apnea, snoring | 100 (estimated) | March 1, 2027 (estimated) | No |
A few notes on these records. NCT02738255 tested an adhesive mouthpiece with a central opening. NCT05404438 had people sleep with their mouths taped while wearing oral appliances. NCT05756647 is the trial behind the 2024 JAMA snoring study in Table 1. In NCT07353242, mouth taping was used during Buteyko breathing exercises rather than overnight. The Johns Hopkins record (NCT06587256) lists its status as recruiting alongside an estimated start date of March 2027 and an estimated completion date of October 2030; we've reported both as listed.
Several published studies in Table 1, including the 2025 CPAP trial, didn't turn up in our ClinicalTrials.gov searches, and some studies are registered elsewhere, so this table isn't a list of every registration worldwide.
Was any brand of mouth tape tested?
Only two studies we found name the product they used, and neither is a consumer mouth tape brand. The 2022 Healthcare study used 3M silicone hypoallergenic tape, a general medical tape. The 2016 registered trial (NCT02738255) tested a named adhesive mouthpiece, an adhesive mouthpiece.
The other studies describe the material without a brand in the parts we could read: microporous tape (2009), a porous oral patch made of silicone and polyurethane layers (2015), commercial mouth strips (2020), an adhesive mouthpiece (2022), breathable tape (2023), silicone hypoallergenic mouth tape (2025 CPAP trial) and silicone tape placed vertically over the lips (Johns Hopkins trial). Results from one tape may not apply to another, and no study has compared brands.
What doesn't the research cover yet?
The research doesn't yet answer several basic questions about mouth taping, mostly because the studies are short and small. These are the gaps we found.
- Children. No study or trial has tested mouth taping as a treatment in children.
- Pregnancy. A 2026 review of nasal breathing in pregnancy says mouth taping remains investigational because pregnancy-specific safety and effectiveness data are absent.
- Long-term use. The longest overnight taping periods in published studies were 4 weeks (asthma), 30 days (CPAP) and 6 weeks (breathing exercises). No study has followed people for months or years.
- Placebo control. Most sleep studies compared people with their own starting point. No study has used a sham tape.
- Snorers without sleep apnea. Apart from the 2024 package trial, the snoring results come from people with sleep apnea. The Johns Hopkins trial is designed to help fill this gap.
- Social media claims. The 2025 scoping review found that few claims made on TikTok, such as more energy, better immunity or dental health, had been studied at all. See mouth taping myths.
- Safety reporting. Several studies excluded people with blocked noses, and side effects were rarely reported in detail.
- Brand comparisons. No study has compared different tapes or materials head to head.
Check this first. Skip mouth tape and see a doctor if you snore loudly, wake up gasping, have been told you stop breathing in your sleep, or can't breathe comfortably through your nose. More on safety
We don't recommend mouth tape for children. If you snore loudly, wake up gasping or feel very sleepy during the day, see a doctor about sleep apnea warning signs before trying tape. Our guide to whether mouth taping is safe covers who should skip it.
How we built this tracker
We built this tracker from public databases on October 20, 2026, using the same searches each time so it can be refreshed.
PubMed, searched through the NCBI E-utilities API (esearch, then esummary and efetch for abstracts, plus PubMed Central full text where it was open). Queries: "mouth taping", "mouth tape", "mouth-taping", "lip taping", "lip tape", "oral patch" AND sleep, "porous oral patch", "mouth closure" AND sleep, "mouth tape" AND CPAP, "tape" AND "mouth breathing" AND sleep, "lip seal" AND sleep, "mouth taped", Buteyko AND tape, "adhesive mouthpiece", and title-and-abstract searches combining tape or taping with mouth breathing, nasal breathing, snoring and mouth leak. A broad "oral taping" search returned 423 mostly unrelated records, so we reran it restricted to titles and abstracts.
ClinicalTrials.gov, searched through its API (version 2) for "mouth taping", "mouth tape", "oral tape", "lip tape", "lip taping", "mouth strip", "oral patch", "lip seal", "mouth seal", "mouth closure", "mouth taped", "adhesive mouthpiece", "nasal breathing tape" and related terms. We opened every candidate record.
Inclusion rules: human studies in which tape, an adhesive mouthpiece or a porous oral patch was put over the lips and results were compared with and without it, or nose-only with mouth-only breathing. Reviews had to search the literature systematically and cover mouth taping. We read the abstract of every candidate and checked full text where it was free.
We excluded infant cleft lip taping, kinesiology taping, chin straps and mouth shields without tape, studies that used tape only to hold sensors, mouth closure by hand, a 1975 Japanese paper with no abstract we could check, and letters, editorials, news items and narrative reviews. The raw results are saved so later updates can be compared line by line.
How to cite this page
To cite this tracker, use the title, publisher, URL and the date you accessed it, since the tables change as research is published.
Better Mouth Tapes. "Mouth taping research tracker: every study and registered trial (updated October 2026)." https://www.bettermouthtapes.com/blog/mouth-taping-research-tracker. Last checked October 20, 2026. Accessed [date].
Please cite the original studies for specific results. Each row links to its PubMed or ClinicalTrials.gov page.
Is this page medical advice?
No, this page is a summary of published research and trial records, not medical advice. It can't tell you whether mouth taping is right for you. Talk to a doctor before taping if you have a blocked nose, asthma, a lung condition, or signs of sleep apnea, and never use tape in place of CPAP or other treatment your doctor has prescribed.
Read next
- Every notable mouth taping study, explained
- Mouth taping facts and statistics
- Does mouth tape help with snoring?
Common questions
How many mouth taping studies are there?
We found 18 published human studies as of October 20, 2026, counting those that used tape, an adhesive mouthpiece or a porous oral patch, during sleep or while awake. Several only used tape as a lab tool to force nose breathing. We also found 4 reviews and 5 relevant trials registered on ClinicalTrials.gov.
What is the strongest evidence for mouth taping?
Snoring in people who breathe through their mouths. A 2015 pilot found the median snoring index fell from 146.7 to 40.0 an hour with a porous oral patch, and in a 2022 study 13 of 20 mouth breathers with mild sleep apnea cut their snoring index by at least half. Neither study had a control group.
Has mouth taping been tested in a randomized controlled trial?
Yes, a few times. A 2009 crossover trial in asthma found no effect, a 2022 crossover pilot tested an adhesive mouthpiece with a dental device, a 2025 crossover trial tested tape with CPAP, and a 2025 trial of 14 women added tape to breathing exercises. A 2024 snoring trial included tape as one part of a four-part package.
Which mouth tape brands have been tested in studies?
Very few studies name a product. The 2022 Healthcare study used 3M silicone hypoallergenic tape, a general medical tape. A 2016 registered trial tested a named adhesive mouthpiece. Other studies describe microporous, silicone or breathable tape, or commercial mouth strips, without naming a brand in the parts we could read.
Are there mouth taping studies in children?
No. We found no published study or registered trial that tested mouth taping as a treatment in children. A 2023 study used a brief lip-taping test to screen nose breathing in children aged 6 to 8, which is different. We don't recommend mouth tape for children.
How often is this tracker updated?
We rerun the same PubMed and ClinicalTrials.gov searches and update the tables when new studies or trial records appear. The date at the top of the page shows the last full check. Our raw search results are kept so each update uses the same queries and rules.
Sources
- Effect of mouth taping at night on asthma control: a randomised single-blind crossover study
- Novel porous oral patches for patients with mild obstructive sleep apnea and mouth breathing: a pilot study
- The impact of mouth-taping in mouth-breathers with mild obstructive sleep apnea: a preliminary study
- Mouth puffing phenomenon and upper airway features may be used to predict the severity of obstructive sleep apnea
- The role of mouth tape for CPAP use in patients with mouth breathing and OSA
- Nocturnal mouth-taping and social media: a scoping review of the evidence
- 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
- Impact of nasal obstruction and mouth taping on sleep apnea indicators: systematic review and meta-analysis
- Mouth closure and airflow in patients with obstructive sleep apnea: a nonrandomized clinical trial
- Study to Examine the Effect of Silicone Mouth Tape on Snoring and Mild Sleep Apnea (NCT06587256)
About this article
- Research
- 10 published sources, listed above.
- Evidence
- Limited. How we rate it
- Last checked
- October 20, 2026
- Funding
- Paid partner of Titan Recovery. Their ads are labeled.
- Found an error?
- Tell us. We log fixes on the corrections page.
* This content is for informational and educational purposes only and is not medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or health condition. Talk to a qualified healthcare provider about your health.
