Plus or minus?

Ever since the 1990s, my doctor had recommended that I take Enervon-C to supplement my daily diet. This, I've been doing faithfully without fail even after I had retired. Every few months, I would scour the pharmacies in Penang in search of this supplement but since about three or years ago, I discovered that it was far more convenient for me to purchase a bottle through the online portals like Shopee or Lazada.

The combination of Vitamins C and B-complex in this product is supposed to promote the body immune system and provide more energy to the user. For a long time, I've known that essentially, it contains 500mg of Vitamin C. At the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, I embraced this product even more because of this high Vitamin C content and even added to it by consuming another 500mg of normal Vitamin C some 12 hours later, thus bringing my daily Vitamin C consumption to 1000mg. I still think to this day that this high daily amount of Vitamin C in my system has helped in warding off infections.

The bottles of Enervon-C that I buy were imported from the manufacturers in Manila. A look at the formulation reveals that apart from the Vitamin C content, each tablet also includes 50mg of Vitamin B1, 20mg of Vitamin B2, 5mg of Vitamin B6, 5mcg of Vitamin B12, 50mg of Niacinamide and 20mg of Calcium Pantothenate.

My latest online purchase of Enervon-C came in strip packs of four pills per pack. Locally produced. There's a slight change as the name is now Evervon-C Plus. I thought what this Plus thing was all about. Would there be something extra on top of my regular Enervon-C in a bottle? The pills looked similar but I noticed that the formulation was slightly different. For one, there's only 40.53mg of Vitamin B1 instead of 50mg. For a second thing, the Calcium Pantothenate is now removed. So it is quite puzzling, isn't it, for this supplementary to have the word Plus affixed to its name when the formulation is reduced? What the heck, it might as well be called Enervon-C Minus.