Thank you skyorbit (Tracy) as Dr. Levy's GSH book is another wow - must read. The first part, the electron/antioxidant discussion, a prelude to his concise treatment in Primal Panacea, is remarkable and makes disease and nutrition so much easier to understand. It is directly applicable to the question here - how does reduced ascorbic acid (nutritious by his definition) enter cells, and why it is unlikely that a marginally toxic substance (DHA) can be the primary source of vitamin C entry into cells.
If it were true, it would mean that a large source of nutritious electrons enters the cells in some other manner, but as with Newton's laws of motion - you donate a electron here, you want to pick up an electron there.
By the way, if I had known/read it before - his explanation of why electron transfer (donating an electron) is called "oxidation" was much appreciated.
This very easy to read book should be read, and we will begin to offer it at our web site (I couldn't find it at Amazon, which is one reason for my delay). We may even give it away with new orders.
This is the study he refers to that mentions how Carnitine and ALA increase GSH "status", http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15246746. I believe this is related to the Bruce Ames work, researchers trying to figure out why the old rats grow young on ALA and Carnitine.
I'll review some of Levy's important points and some general ideas of raising GSH content in cells - in a subsequent post - which is and has been a "hard" problem. GSH is made all the time by all cells - else we die quickly. Again, thank you for the push to read this. Worth it. And I am now even more convinced that the common assumption that GLUT transporters are king, doesn't make sense. It seemingly defies the laws of physics (and electron transfer). Logically, DHA transport from the blood into cells is a secondary mechanism at best. It has to be. I know there was early research which showed this transport exists, and it became common knowledge that it was dominant. Like everything else in medicine, it is wise to question dogma.