Joe Harker
A doctor has warned that the popular TikTok trend of 'mouth taping' has the potential to be very dangerous.
For those who aren't 'on the TikTok', like most of the kids these days, another trend has sprung up where people are talking about the benefits of 'mouth taping'.
As you can probably guess from the name, this is the practice of taping your mouth shut when you fall asleep, which people say helps them avoid breathing through their mouth once they've dozed off.
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Fans of this TikTok trend say it helps them sleep deeper and better, while also cutting down on them snoring and improving their oral hygiene.
However, while there might be some benefits to taping your mouth shut while you sleep, there are people who have sounded a warning over the health risks.
Speaking to CNN, a sleep specialist doctor explained that people with obstructive sleep apnoea would find the TikTok trend 'very dangerous'.
Dr. Raj Dasgupta, associate professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, said there was 'limited evidence' of the benefits of mouth taping while the risks the trend posed to some people were incredibly clear.
She said: "There are many other options to address snoring beside mouth taping such as nasal strips, nasal dilators, mouth, throat and tongue exercises.
"These issues should be addressed and evaluated first before mouth taping. In my opinion, taping your mouth shut is not likely to help you sleep better."
Dr Dasgupta said that anyone intent on trying the trend should first get evaluated for sleep apnoea.
Meanwhile, a study into the effects of mouth taping found that doing it properly led to something called 'mouth puffing' where people just breathed in and out of the sides of their mouth instead.
The proper way to do mouth taping is not to cover your whole mouth horizontally like you're a kidnapping victim as that can completely block the airway.
Instead, you're supposed to have a strip of tape going vertically over your mouth to keep it shut without completely blocking it up, though the chances of 'mouth puffing' may make this a futile exercise anyway.
A few years ago, a pop singer was slated for taping her children's mouths shut while they were sleeping as there was 'no convincing body of evidence' to support the practice while there were plenty of risks involved with trouble breathing and the possibility of choking on vomit.
Mouth taping wouldn't be the first TikTok trend to end up attracting warnings over being a health hazard.
Influencers on the site tried to get people into 'perineum sunning' to extend their tan to their nether regions, but experts warned it was a 'stupid idea' which ran the risk of getting sunburn or developing skin cancer on your most sensitive areas.
Experts also sounded a warning over a TikTok trend involving eating frozen honey, with those in the know pointing out that people were consuming ungodly amounts of sugar and could do themselves harm if they tried participating in the trend.
Then there was 'vabbing', which involves dabbing yourself with pheromones from a part of the anatomy near to where you'd get your perineum sunning done, it didn't so much get a backlash from experts as just people in general.