Some of the parents in the co-op have been advised to commit to a gluten free diet for their children to follow. Does having a gluten free diet help your child’s ability to learn? Do any of you practice or have committed to a gluten free diet? I am just researching this so if any of you have any information regarding a gluten free diet in the home education surroundings please reply. 
I am not sure where I got this information (an article or documentary on homeschooling) but I know that there is one homeschooling family that do not use any sugar but instead uses molasses. Both parents are professors (one is a scientist) and they said that sugars (and foods that act like sugar - such as white rice, pancakes, bread, corn flakes, crackers, parsnips, potatoes, etc.) changes the brain. Below is the article entitled “What Sugar Does To Your Brain” (http://olsonnd.com/what-sugar-does-to-your-brain/):
What Sugar Does to Your Brain
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
By Dr. Scott
Sugar Brain
You open a can of soda and pour that sugary drink into your mouth. The sugar travels down your throat and into your stomach; the sugar then has a very short trip from your stomach into your blood stream. As that sugar starts to move its way throughout your body, it eventually makes its way to your brain. You brain is happy with this shot of sugar you just gave it, because, while it only makes up only two percent of the body weight, your brain uses one-half of all the sugar energy in the body.1
But, is there such a thing as too much sugar for your brain? And that soda you just drank, it will cause your blood sugar to skyrocket and eventually drop; what happens to your brain then? And what about other sugar-brains questions: doesn’t sugar make you or your kids hyperactive, and doesn’t sugar change your mood?
The short answer to these all these questions is: we don’t know. Scientific studies on the effects of sugar on the brain are sparse at best and most medical professionals and organizations will say that sugar has nothing to do with mood or hyperactivity. If you are surprised by that stance, you are not alone.
Most parents have witnessed firsthand the effect of sugar on little kid’s brains. Most adults will tell you that they have experienced a sort of mental fog from eating too much sugar, not to mention the sugar high and the sugar crash. But none of these experiences mean anything to researchers who report that there are no such things as sugar highs or lows or that hyperactivity could be caused by too much sugar.
But just because there isn’t much research on how sugar and foods that act like sugar and how they affect mental function, doesn’t mean there isn’t any. This article will piece together the bits of information out there on sugar and brain function to get a better understanding of what sugar is doing to our brains. As usual, I will be including not only sugar, but foods that act like sugar in the discussion.
Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor
Let’s start with a brain chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). BDNF is the key to understanding what happens when sugar hits our brain.
Brain-derived neurotrophic factor is responsible for the development of new brain tissue. If you didn’t have this chemical in your brain, your brain wouldn’t develop properly and you would die very soon after birth. The key to BDNF is to understand what it does: it helps to create new neurons (nerve tissue), and, therefore new memories.
You want as much BDNF around as possible if you want to learn, grow, and have normal brain functioning.
Research has shown that high sugar diets (along with high fat diets and lack of essential fatty acids) decrease a BDNF.2 In fact, the relationship between BDNF and sugar gets even more interesting: low amounts of BDNF actually leads to insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and even diabetes.3 This means that high sugar in the blood leads to low BDNF, and then low BDNF leads to a worsening of blood sugar control, which leads to high blood sugar, which leads to worse blood sugar control… and the cycle continues.
In an interesting study on rats, it was discovered that the animals that had the best ability to learn spatial and memory tasks also had the highest amount of BDNF. It took only two months on a high sugar and high fat diet to significantly reduce BDNF in the brains of the experimental animals and for the reduction to have an effect on the animal’s ability to perform spatial and memory tasks.4
Low BDNF is no small thing as it has also been associated with depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, Huntington’s disease, Rett syndrome, and schizophrenia.
But there is much more to the sugar-brain story than BDNF, let’s take a look.
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is one of the best places to start when discussing how sugar affects our brains. There are quite a few clinical studies that link the consumption of grains (foods that act like sugar) with schizophrenia.5 It has long been thought that people who are schizophrenic may have a problem with the protein found in many grains (gluten) and there is a strong association between schizophrenia and Celiac disease.6
Interestingly, there is also a close association with poor blood sugar control (metabolic syndrome) and the severity of schizophrenia:
It appears that the same dietary factors which are associated with the metabolic syndrome, including high saturated fat, high glycemic load, and low omega-3 (PUFA), may also be detrimental to the symptoms of schizophrenia.7
These researcher show that once again, a diet low in essential fatty acids (omega-3) and high in fat and sugar will decrease BDNF and it makes me wonder if sugar and foods that act like sugar may be the “smoking gun†in schizophrenia.
Depression and Anxiety
As a hint that how we live and what we eat have some effect on our moods, it has long been known that coronary heart disease and diabetes all are common in people with depression.8 This means that the same dietary conditions that create heart disease and diabetes also can lead to depression. Interesting…
Sugar consumption in population studies have been shown to have a close link with major depression.9 Researchers suggest that the sugar and brain association may be due to the oxidative stress that sugar can cause or the change in beta-endorphins (brain chemicals that make us feel good) that comes about because of sugar use.
Anxiety, too, has been closely linked with sugar use in a number of studies.10
Children
Perhaps the biggest questions arise when discussing children, mood, behavior and sugar. While any parent would tell you that sugar can dramatically change the behavior of a child, the medical community is silent. There have been a few studies that show an association between high blood sugars and problem behaviors, but these studies have mostly been performed in children who already have blood sugar problems (such as diabetes).1112 More studies need to be done and need to be done in children with normal blood sugar.
Autism is an interesting exception to the lack of research. A review by the prestigious Cochrane review admitted that many of the studies linking foods that act like sugar (grains) and gluten to autism have been of poor quality, but they do point to one study that does show a relationship between a gluten-free diet and improvement in the symptoms of autism.13 While far from conclusive, these studies open the possibility of a solution for the growing epidemic of autism.
Wow thanks. K to you! Does anyone out there practice Gluten free meaning no wheat, barley, etc. Does anyone have a child that is allergic to corn, flour, wheat, etc. I have noticed that since my LO has stopped eating oatmeal his eczema is cleared up. Do homeschoolers practice the gluten free diet more than public schooled children? Do you think that schools should also make this change or atleast provide an alterantive to children who are schooled? Hey just a thought.
We practice a gluten free/dairy free diet for my son who has autism. It has helped him leaps and bounds. We also avoid solid soy proteins, like tofu and soy milk as he reacts to that, but seems good with food that contains soybean oil. We also tried hemp milk, but that product actually made him violent. Any questions feel from to ask as my son has been on this diet for almost 2 years now 
I think I might start cutting down his sugar intake too. See how that affects him
That’s great that it has helped him. If you don’t mind me asking do you homeschool? Would you be interested in writing an editorial or a small summary of how that you started the process and post it on here, what you tried first, your experiences with different contents and how they effected him? I just thought I would ask to see if you would be interested on posting it so that others and my co-op parents can refer back to it. I will be adding some of my own plus recipes for everyone on here. I may ask you some more questions if you don’t mind later on.
First I guess to ask is have you seen a change not only a behavioural change but an educational change after eliminating some contents from his diet?
Why don’t you PM me the details of what you would like in the article. I’ll go back in my blog and I’m sure I can find some details to his behavior changes. However if your co-op students are autistic(which I believe one is), the elimation of dairy products is important too. I’m not a homeschool mom per say. My son attends daycare where most of his day is spent with his ABA tutor, then he comes home and then I do therapy and some homeschooling stuff with him. I guess you could say I have been part time homeschooling his offically sense Nov2008. However alot of people in the homeschooling circle frown upon the fact that I call the time I spend teaching him homeschooling and believe only a mom or dad that says at home and that the child is no involved with any daycare can call what they do homeschooling. So it depends where the people reading this article will stand. As a single mom this is the closest to homeschooling we can get.
Thank you so much. I will check out your blog and I have PM you. Our co-op is for everyone who home educate if it is just 15 minutes a day. We include all parents in our co-op not just ‘homeschooling’ parents, we have church parents, leaders, and teen that help out in our co-op. Home education is not just about staying home thing, it is also when a parent just spends time with their child having fun, for we all learn by seeing, doing, hearing, and just being together as a family. We welcome all parents, grandparents, adoptive parents, aunts, and uncle and church leaders, to our co-op. We are sort of a support group for people who care or lead our next generation of leaders.
I think that you are doing a great job with your LO. Keep up the good work. I understand exactly where you are coming from. I haven’t always been a ‘home educating stay at home mom’ so I understand totally. I worked when my first child was born, and teaching him when I got home was difficult but we did for just 10 minutes a day. it has helped him tremendously.
And yes the co-op is and has helped many children with their specific needs, and their education.
I’m glad to hear that!! It sounds like your in a very opened minded group of people. Sadly I have run across people who have made me feel like trash for not staying home full time to educate my son 
I started working on a write up. The blog that I have in my signature is not the blog that I have the gluten free transition in. My long term blog is on Open Diary and you have to be a member in order to read it, but if you are I’d love to add you to my faves list However i will be posting this write up on my Doman and ABA blog :)Thanks for the chance to share this info
Great let me know when it’s ready to share that is if you don’t mind PM me. Thanks. I will check out the blog below later on. We are working on the co-ops blog as well. Thanks for your help everyone.