The average American woman reads almost 16 books a year; men just under 10. And according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey, nearly 80% of U.S. adults read food labels before deciding whether to buy a packaged product or not.

That's a lot of information to digest. But label reading is important because it helps you avoid over-processed foods that contribute to a wide range of health woes including dementia, cancer, and liver disease.

And according to a new study in PLOS Medicine, food additives tend to travel in herds — crowding labels with a string of impossible-to-pronounce and mysterious ingredients. Those combinations increase the additives' contributions to premature aging, inflammation, and chronic diseases such as Type 2 diabetes.

Two common combinations are:

1. Modified starches, pectin, guar gum, carrageenan, polyphosphates, potassium sorbates, curcumin, and xanthan gum

2. Citric acid, sodium citrates, phosphoric acid, sulphite, ammonia caramel, acesulfame-K, aspartame, sucralose, arabic gum, malic acid, carnauba wax, paprika extract, anthocyanins, guar gum, and pectin

These two super-lists of additives increase your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes even if you eat a mostly healthy diet.

That means, say researchers who looked at data on more almost 110,000 adults, that if you eliminate these "packages" of food additives, you may dodge diabetes and its related complications.