Weight-loss surgery can be a highly effective step, not just to treat but also to prevent type 2 diabetes, a new study shows. A British researcher found that "even after accounting for other factors that influence diabetes," the procedure reduced obese individuals' risk of developing the ailment by 80 percent, Medical News Today reported.

Type 2 diabetes, sometimes called "adult-onset diabetes," a metabolic disorder, leads to high blood sugar due due to insulin resistance or lack of insulin; insulin is the hormone that regulates the amount of glucose in the blood.

In contrast to type 1 diabetes, which is thought to have mainly genetic and environmental causes, type 2 diabetes is often the result of an unhealthy lifestyle, including obesity and lack of physical activity. Often, it is initially managed through dietary changes and exercise in addition to medication. Prior studies have shown that for many patients, tough, weight-loss surgery is a critical step to rein in the disease.

To show that the procedure can also help prevent its onset, the team at King's College in London followed more than 4,300 obese patients over the course of seven years, Medical News Today detailed. Half of them underwent one of three kinds of surgical procedures: gastric bypass, gastric banding or sleeve gastrectomy; the other half did not.

"The researchers found that 177 of the control participants developed type 2 diabetes during followup, compared with only 38 participants who had undergone weight loss surgery," the medical news service notes. The King's College study was published in the "Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology" journal.

"We need to understand how weight-loss surgery can be used, together with interventions to increase physical activity and promote healthy eating, as part of an overall diabetes prevention strategy," said the study's author, Martin Gulliford, according to Diabetes Insider.

Today, surgical intervention is recommended for people who have a body-mass index of more than 35 and suffer from related health conditions, the publication detailed. It is "used to treat people who carry an excessive amount of body fat and considered 'dangerously obese.'"