The effect of flavour on acceptability of antacid tablets

One hundred healthy volunteers recorded their subjective impressions of taste, mouth feel, after-taste and preference, after receiving in turn two tablets of each of four commonly-used antacids. The subjects remained unaware of the appearance of name of the products. The orange flavoured tablets, Asilone Orange, were shown to have a more acceptable taste, mouth feel and after-taste than three other commonly used antacids, Gaviscon, Altacite Plus, and Aluminium Hydroxide B.P., and these differences were highly significant (P less than 0.0001). Furthermore, 93% of cases expressed a willingness to take the orange flavoured tablets again, on a long term basis if necessary.