Im doing research on the effects of caffeine and taurine on repeated sprint ability. I used both caffeine and taurine as tablets form. However, I cant find placebo supplement that mimic the same form as caffeine and taurine. The one I found was in gelatin capsule. Is it okay to use it?
Your problem is that, you cant find any placebo that mimic the trial tablets Caffeine and Taurine, so you plan to have gelatin capsule but this will be wrong as not resembling the trial tablets. You can have milk sugar tablets with Caffeine and Taurine flavors; (Taurine is having a typical nasty smell and Caffeine is having specific flavor).
I think this depends on whether you wish to run a blinded study or a double blind study. If only the patients are blind to the treatment vs placebo then it probably doesn't matter what form the dose takes but if you feel you need a double blind study then it becomes important that the tablets are similar. I would have thought that if you can make your study tablet you should be able to make placebo versions with the same equipment. As Gandhidas suggests though, an active with strong smell probably gives it away to the study personnel.
It is better to formulate a placebo version if the study is a randomized double-blinded placebo-controlled trial.
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