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Buckwheat is included in many catalogs of foods to be avoided by celiacs.
Yet, as pointed out in this list by Don Kasarda, it is so distantly
related to wheat that the probability of its containing a close replica
of the highly specialized seed storage protein seems low.  I am one who
has eaten buckwheat freely during the 20+ years since being diagnosed a
celiac, with no toxic effect whatever.  Laura Johnson-Kelly on Jan. 11
made it clear that there were those who, despite the probabilities, were
sensitive to buckwheat.  She felt there was a need for dietary trials to
determine whether buckwheat was indeed toxic to gluten-sensitive
individuals.  Results of what might pass, more or less, for such a trial
have been published recently: "Immunological analysis of serum from
buckwheat fed celiac patients", M.L.P. de Francischi, J.M. Selgado &
C.P. da Costa, Plant Foods for Human Nutrition 46: 207-211, 1994.
Buckwheat flour in porridge, soup and milk was fed to children seen in
Pediatric Gastroenterology at the medical school in Sao Paulo for 30
days at which time blood samples were analyzed for anti-buckwheat
antibodies by an indirect immunofluorescent method that measured the
specific binding of serum immunoglobulin to thin frozen sections of
buckwheat grains.  They found no anti-buckwheat anti-bodies in the ONE
celiac child (on a gluten-free diet and with no averse reaction to the
buckwheat that was fed) who completed the feeding regime or in a healthy
child run as a control.  Nor did the two children differ in their low
level of anti-wheat antibodies.  The experimental design was hardly
ideal, especially in sample size (one child completed the 30 day diet
out of 6 that started it), but the results as far as they go are not
incompatible with the phylogenetic and anatomic distance between wheat
seeds and buckwheat granules.
                                Rich Abrams, Pittsburgh, PA