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The Ballegaard Heart Disease Program®

LMIC Initiative

The Healing Power of the Unconscious Brain for people

with cardiovascular disease in Low- to Middle-Income Countries (LMIC).
- A cost-free educational program.

Premises

Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death, disability and human suffering globally (WHO). Despite substantial improvements in the survival, these people still face an elevated risk compared to the general population (Sidney et al 2018), and even more so in the low- and middle-income countries (Bowry et al 2015).

 

Worldwide, more than 500 million people have cardiovascular atherosclerotic disease, and the number is increasing (Nedkoff et al 2023). For this reason, 17 million people die prematurely (that means younger than 70 years old) every year, and 85% are due to ischemic heart disease or stroke (WHO). Seventy-five percent of these premature deaths occur in the Low- to middle-income countries (WHO). In these countries, this risk is 2-3 times higher than for people living in the high-income countries. Approximately five billion people (60% of the world population) live in these countries.

This underscores a big unmet need, and that initiatives like the present are warranted (Bapatla et al 2021) (Kundu et al 2023).

 

This gap between different regions of the world is even expanding (Bowry et al 2015) which is related to a complex interplay of socioeconomic factors, access to health care and management of risk factors (Mocumbi et al 2024; Rosengren et al 2019).

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The present program aims to approach this unmet need by introduction a fully evidenced, easy-to-use, and non-pharmacological diagnostic, preventative and therapeutic program for cardiovascular atherosclerotic disease, and with focus on the Low- to middle-income countries.

 

 NB: The program does not replace any recommended medical, surgical or other presently used treatment or recommendation. It serves merely as an add-on.

 

Contemporary development within computer science may contribute for an ongoing further improvement of the educational program as well as providing data for decision makers within health care systems. This part will be activated subsequently to an expressed success by end-users.

Key Features about
the Program

Key features about the program

  1. It is a fully evidenced program, which has been found to reduce the 4-year all-cause mortality in people with cardiovascular disease by 60% (Ballegaard et al 2023), cut the 3-year need for surgery with 80%, cut the 3-year use of cardiovascular pharmaceuticals with more than 75%, and cut the 3-year number of in-hospital days with 90% (Ballegaard et al 2004). See “Science Review June 2025” for the comprehensive scientific background.

  2. The educational program is non-pharmacological - thus with no risk for side effects or complications. It is explained in detail in a scientific paper (Ballegaard et al 2023).

  3. The exercises of the program are easy to do from the instructions of the videos.

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Who Are We

A Danish life-science neuroscientist MD & PHD:

  1. My life-long (i.e., 40 years) research and developments has focused on the understanding and possible enhancement of the ability of the brain/body to promote healing and prevent disease by non-pharmaceutical means. Consequently, to provide means for individual citizens to obtain personal control of health.

  2. My motivation for the present initiative is to see that the fruit of this science creates benefice for my fellow citizens.

  3. In my part of the world the maturity time for the dissemination of science into clinical use is traditionally approximately 20 years. As I understand that my research presents a solution to a big and unmet need in the low- and middle-income countries, I want to help my fellow humans in this part of the world, while maturity gradually takes place in my own part of the world.  
            

A Caribbean /English IT- and AI specialist: 

  1. I am a seasoned computer scientist with over 24 years of experience spanning the fintech, media, and government sectors. With more than eight years dedicated to cloud and data architecture and engineering, I excel in designing scalable, future-proof, and cloud-agnostic solutions tailored to meet diverse organizational needs.

  2. I am passionate about contributing my extensive expertise to meaningful projects that drive impactful missions. I am committed to leveraging my skills to advance initiatives that improve quality of life outcomes, ensuring that technology serves as a catalyst for positive changes.

Who Are You

  1. You (or a parent, grandparent, aunt or uncle of yours) have cardiovascular atherosclerotic disease
     

  2. You brush your teeth daily. If so, you will be able to include the program in your life
     

  3. You have experienced that you some days have more energy than others. If so, you will be able to grasp the basics of the program

Team Building Session
Human Anatomy Model

What Can You Expect

  1. Examine yourself for an imbalance in the unconscious (autonomic) part of your nervous system, as controlled in your brain
     

  2. If so, you can revert that situation by a set of simple daily exercises, which enables you to:

    • alleviate acute attacks of chest pain

    • gradually reduced the frequency of chest pain attacks

    • eliminate the excess mortality associated with your disease and may reduce your need for hospital stays

Your Efforts

  1. The only thing you need to do, is to do the exercises daily – for the first 3 months, expectedly 2 x 10-15 minutes a day – later 2 minutes daily
     

  2. You do not need to trust the program, have special thoughts, wishes or beliefs as the effect of the program is mediated by reflexes of the unconscious nervous system. Such reflexes are outside the control of emotions and thoughts. However, that does not mean to suggest that you can neglect all the sensible elements of contemporary cardiovascular rehabilitation programs
     

  3. The program is free of charge and with no obligations attached

Team Building Session

Practicalities Regarding the Flow of the Program

  1. Step one: Three months of education: A series of six video sessions with two weeks between sessions – presented on TikTok, Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn and X. 
     

  2. Step two: three months of making the program a daily habit. A series of other 6 videos
     

  3. Each video is presented on the same weekday and same time of day 

Limitations

Some limitations need to be addressed: The program does not replace existing surgical or medical interventions; it serves merely as a complement to these as well as to present cardiovascular rehabilitation programs. However, while contemporary surgical and pharmacological intervention has helped and still are very useful, the present program addressed cardiovascular disease differently - from the unconscious brain. It uses a validated physiological measure for stress and an intervention which in a series of Randomized Controlled Trials has proved to have a beneficial effect on a broad range of cardiovascular atherosclerotic health risk factors. These factors include stress, heart rate, blood pressure, work of the heart, cholesterol in the blood, depression, the function of the unconscious (autonomic) part of the nervous system and energy metabolism (blood sugar), all of which in symphony have proven to reduce the 4-years mortality substantially by 60%, and when compared to the general population.  However, these effects were obtained in programs which included a personal instructor, a special measurement device measuring the level of stress and thus the function or dysfunction of the unconscious (autonomic) nervous system. The present initiative does not include the use of the mentioned device – but you will be educated to use your own fingers as a substitute for the device, and this method has proven to be successful during the years for which the device was not yet developed (Ballegaard et al 2004, Magnusson et al 2010).

Steps in the implementation process of the program
 

  1. The program is open to all users of the internet. We are invited to present the Initiative at a Cardiology congress, July 2025 (see link below), and with the focus being Low- to Middle-Income Countries (the LMIC Initiative).

  2. Ongoing adjustments of the program, based on feedback.

For Professionals
 

For the professionals who want to integrate the program into their service for people with cardiovascular disease, this is possible by our educational program. This program includes professional use of the PPS measurement device, both as a measure for screening and as a therapeutic target (Salvani et al 2023). Furthermore, it includes professional guidance of the user of the program (www.ballegaard.eu).

Links

  1. Further information on the scientific validation of the program (www.ballegaard.eu).

  2. Link to Cardiology congress in Rome July 2025: (2nd International Conference on Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine 2025 | Rome, Italy)

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References

  1. Bowry et al 2015: The Burden of Cardiovascular Disease in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: Epidemiology and Management

  2. Mocumbi AO 2024. Cardiovascular Health Care in Low- and Middle-Income Countries | Circulation

  3. Rosengren A et al 2019. Socioeconomic status and risk of cardiovascular disease in 20 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: the Prospective Urban Rural Epidemiologic (PURE) study - The Lancet Global Health

  4. Ballegaard S, Borg E, Karpatschof B, Nyboe J, Johannessen A. Long-term effects of integrated rehabilitation in patients with advanced angina pectoris: a nonrandomized comparative study. J Altern Complement Med. 2004; 10(5): 777-83. doi: 10.1089/acm.2004.10.777.

  5. Ballegaard S et al 2023. In ischemic heart disease, reduced sensitivity to pressure at the sternum accompanies lower mortality after 5 years: Evidence for a randomized controlled trial. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0383/12/24/7585 

  6. Nedkoff L, Briffa T, Zemedikun D, Herrington S, Wright FL. Global Trends in Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease. Clin Ther. 2023 Nov;45(11):1087-1091. doi: 10.1016/j.clinthera.2023.09.020. Epub 2023 Oct 30.

  7. WHO Cardiovascular diseases Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs)

  8. Kundu J, James KS, Hossain B, Chakraborty R. Gender differences in premature mortality for cardiovascular disease in India, 2017-18. BMC Public Health. 2023 Mar 23;23(1):547. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-15454-9.PMID: 36949397 

  9. Bapatla N, Ramoutar UD, Sharma N, Ramoutar A, Ortega VL, Goorachan A, Haffizulla F. Cardiovascular Disease in the Indo-Caribbean Population: A Scoping Review. Cureus. 2021 Jun 1;13(6):e15375. doi: 10.7759/cureus.15375. eCollection 2021 Jun.PMID: 34249528 

  10. Mendis S, Davis S, Norrving B.  Organizational update: the world health organization global status report on noncommunicable diseases 2014; one more landmark step in the combat against stroke and vascular disease. Stroke. 2015 May;46(5):e121-2. doi: 10.1161/STROKEAHA.115.008097. Epub 2015 Apr 14.PMID: 25873596 

  11. Magnusson G, Ballegaard S, Karpatschof B, Nyboe J. Long-term effects of integrated rehabilitation in patients with stroke: a nonrandomized comparative feasibility study. J Altern Complement Med. 2010 Apr;16(4):369-74. Doi: 10.1089/acm.2009.0097.PMID: 20423207

  12. Sidney S, Sorel ME, Quesenberry CP, Jaffe MG, Solomon MD, Nguyen-Huynh MN, Go AS, Rana JS.  Comparative Trends in Heart Disease, Stroke, and All-Cause Mortality in the United States and a Large Integrated Healthcare Delivery System. Am J Med. 2018 Jul;131(7):829-836.e1. doi: 10.1016/j.amjmed.2018.02.014. Epub 2018 Apr 2.PMID: 29625083 

  13. Salvini V, Accioli R, Lazzerini PE, Acampa M  Editorial: New challenges and future perspectives in autonomic neuroscience. Front Neurosci. 2023 Aug 23;17:1271499. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2023.1271499. eCollection 2023.PMID: 37680971 

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