Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death among people with diabetes, accounting for at least two out of three diabetes-related deaths. Please talk with your diabetes patients about their increased risk for heart disease and stroke. Make sure they know that risk reduction is possible and help them understand that diabetes is more than managing blood glucose. It is managing blood glucose, blood pressure, cholesterol, and other CVD risk factors.

To assist with your educational efforts, we're offering a comprehensive kit of reproducible patient education handouts on topics related to diabetic CVD. Developed by the American Diabetes Association, American College of Cardiology and Preventive Cardiovascular Nurses Association, the kit covers 26 topics, and is available in English and in Spanish.

The handouts below are in PDF format and you will need Acrobat Reader to view each topic. Download and print a master copy, and photocopy the handouts for your patients. A hardcopy or CDRom of the toolkit is available free for health care professionals. To order, please call 1-800-DIABETES (342-2383) and specify whether you want CDRom or hard copy or send a request the CD or hardcopy by email from AskADA.

Topics in the Diabetes-Cardiovascular Disease Toolkit