Taping the mouth shut while you sleep may offer a new way to tackle snoring.
A device which sticks to the outside of the mouth and stops it opening during sleep is being tried in a new U.S. study involving 30 patients.
Scientists say the approach forces people to breathe though their noses, and this could help tackle sleep apnoea — where the tissues in the throat collapse repeatedly during the night, blocking the airways.
Consequently, people stop breathing for up to ten seconds at a time.
The theory is that breathing through the mouth more is one of the main causes of apnoeas (the period when someone stops breathing) as well as snoring (the sound produced as air squeezes through restricted airways at the back of the throat).
This is because when you sleep with your mouth open, the incoming air is cold and hits the back of the throat at high speed. This combination can make the soft tissue at the back of the throat vibrate and constrict.
Conversely, when we breathe through our nose the air coming in warms up as it goes through the nasal passageway, and when it comes into contact with the back of the throat it isn’t as ‘turbulent’ and doesn’t cause the effects that would lead to an apnoea or snoring.
Scientists believe that the new treatment, by encouraging patients to breathe through their noses, will overcome this problem.
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