Project Overview

GIFTS brings together a unique group of investigators from Europe and South Asia, with wide-ranging expertise, to study diabetes in people of South Asian origin, both in their native countries and Europe.  Results will be used to inform public health policy, through guideline development, and aid the design of a large-scale pragmatic intervention for diabetes prevention.    

It is intended that GIFTS will enhance understanding of the convergence of genetic and environmental factors involved in developing diabetes and obesity, and their transmission through parent-child units.  The complex array of molecular, behavioural and societal factors conferring an increased risk of developing these conditions in later-life is also being investigated. 

The GIFTS programme focuses on three critical time points to understand the windows of opportunity which may be available for specific, targeted prevention of diabetes, metabolic syndrome and obesity on a population-wide scale.  The time points being investiagted are:

  • pre-/peri-conception
  • gestation
  • the postnatal period

The 18 months report was published and the work packages have been updated with the latest informations.

The EU has granted a non paid extension to the GIFTS Project, taking the end date to 31.01.2016. We are in the process of writing the 36 months report and this will be made available in the Media section soon. 

SICA Projects

GIFTS is a Specific International Co-operation Action (SICA) Collaborative projects funded by the European Commission.  SICA projects form part of a global initiative on gene-environment interactions in diabetes and obesity in specific populations. 

The other SICA projects are:

Epi-MigrantMEDIGENE and RODAM