Experts believe it may be possible to "retrain" immune systems to safely slow the advance of type 1 diabetes, following a new British trial.
Injecting patients with "small fragments" of protein molecules helped prevent cells attacking insulin, researchers at King's College London (KCL) and Cardiff University observed.
The disease starts when the body mistakenly targets cells in the pancreas that maintain blood sugar levels.
There is no known cure but these results suggest scientists are "heading in the right direction", trial leader Professor Mark Peakman says.
"When someone is diagnosed with type 1 diabetes they still typically have between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of their beta cells," he said.
"We wanted to see if we could protect these remaining cells by retraining the immune system to stop attacking them.
"The peptide technology used in our trial is not only appears to be safe for patients at this stage but it also has a noticeable effect on the immune system."
The immunotherapy was trialled on 27 patients and was placebo-controlled.
The research was published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
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