WASHINGTON (Reuters) ¿ The rate of cardiovascular ailments such as heart disease and stroke among Americans with diabetes has dropped in recent years, with blacks leading the way in the improvement, health officials said last week.

The percentage of diabetics with cardiovascular disease fell from 36.6 percent in 1997 to 32.5 percent in 2005, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report. The 11 percent drop was fuelled by major strides by blacks.

The rate of black diabetics with cardiovascular disease fell by a quarter during this period, from 36.3 percent in 1997 to 27.1 percent in 2005. Whites saw a much smaller decline during the same period, the CDC said. Blacks still have higher diabetes rates than whites or Hispanics.

A second CDC report showed more diabetics are monitoring their blood sugar levels daily.

While the rates of cardiovascular disease among diabetics have declined, many more people overall were diagnosed with diabetes from 1997 to 2005 ¿ a 43 percent increase, the CDC noted. In 2005, about 5 percent of Americans had diabetes.

Cardiovascular disease is the top cause of death for Americans, particularly among diabetics. Nearly two thirds of deaths among US diabetics are caused by heart disease and stroke, and diabetics have heart disease death rates about two to four times higher than other people, the CDC said.

The recent trend, the CDC said, might be due to progress against cardiovascular disease risk factors like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and smoking, development of new drugs such as cholesterol-lowering statins, and use of heart disease preventive treatments like daily aspirin therapy.

"It's certainly encouraging to see this decline. However, it doesn't mean that we need to stop what we're doing and say, 'Job well done,'" CDC epidemiologist Nilka Rios Burrows, who led the report, said in a telephone interview.

The findings were based on responses from people who took part in annual government health surveys during this period. Between 3,700 and 6,800 people took part in each of the surveys, and they were asked whether they had been diagnosed with diabetes and cardiovascular disease, the CDC said. In addition to heart disease and stroke, diabetes is a leading cause of blindness, kidney failure and amputations. Diabetes causes the body to fail to produce or properly use insulin, a hormone necessary to convert sugar, starches and other food into energy. Type 2 diabetes, the most frequent form, has become more common in recent decades thanks in part to growing rates of obesity.