THE EFFECT OF FLAVOUR ON ACCEPTABILITY OF ANTACID TABLETS *

SUMMARY 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 or 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 < 0·0001). Furthermore, 93% of cases expressed a willingness to take the orange flavoured tablets again, on a long term basis if necessary.