09/03/2009 09:54:00 Researchers from the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville, Fla., are the first to experiment with cord blood infusions as a treatment for children with type 1 diabetes. For the study, researchers identified children recently diagnosed with type 1 diabetes whose families had banked their cord blood at birth. Most of the participants were still producing a small amount of insulin. The researchers then gave patients intravenous infusions of stem cells isolated from their own cord blood. In the first six months, patients given the infusions required less insulin: on average, 0.45 versus 0.69 units of insulin per kilogram per day. The children also maintained better control of blood sugar levels than children of a comparable age with type 1 diabetes randomly selected from the clinic population. The researchers also found children who received cord blood infusions had higher levels of regulatory immune cells in their blood: on average, nine percent of the total cell volume compared with 7.21 percent at the time of the infusion. The experimental treatment is not a cure, but it is a significant step toward a better understanding of the disease. In the future, researchers hope they can intervene and repair early damage during the "honeymoon period" -- the first several months after diagnosis when insulin needs are minimal. They hope the cord blood treatment will eventually become part of a combination therapy approach to treating the disease. The study was funded by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.