Most people have never heard of miliaria. Most medical practitioners will not have been taught anything about this condition during their training. However miliaria is the source of many chronic human conditions whose cause has remained unknown for thousands of years. The aetiologies are detailed in this innatehealth.com website for the first time in history.

The most known type of miliaria is prickly heat, an inflammatory itchy skin condition associated with hot conditions and sweaty clothing. Where the inflammation is near the surface of the skin the condition is called miliaria crystallina. This condition is often seen in babies. Where the inflammation is a little deeper in the skin, causing separate red lesions, the condition is called miliaria rubra. Sufferers from this condition include people who do physical work in hot conditions, such as miners, firemen and catering workers. The current standard treatment (if the condition is correctly diagnosed) is removal to a cooler climate. This means that in some cases workers cannot continue their occupation.

Miliaria is caused because the sweat gland ducts become obstructed by the presence in the ducts of normal skin microbes. The question, which is fundamental to the understanding of chronic diseases, is, "what circumstances cause the microbes to block the ducts?" This question has never been answered, but the explanation is now given below.

Humans have between 2 and 4 million sweat glands with ducts leading to the surface of the skin. Sweat is a fluid consisting mainly of water, waste products such as urea, plus sodium and other salts. In a fit and healthy person sweat is output from the sweat glands in two distinct ways. First there is a slow basal level known as insensible perspiration. This level of output continues every minute of the day and night. This sweat is the skin moisturiser and also protects the skin against the entry of microbes.

The substances in sweat which protect against microbes are called anti-microbial peptides. These peptides are probably the same peptides which protected simple organisms at the beginning of evolutionary time. Thus they have a characteristic which until now has not been recognised. In order to be effective against microbes the fluid which carries the peptides has to be at a fairly precise salinity, probably similar to the salinity of the seas at the time life was first created. This salinity is much less than the salinity of modern oceans.

No medical textbook or study has ever mentioned the requirement for precise tonicity for the effectiveness of anti-microbial peptide. This is a new medical science discovery.

Sweat is extracted by sweat glands from the circulating human blood supply. At this stage it is too salty for the anti-microbial peptide to work, but as the sweat moves from the sweat gland along the duct towards the skin surface it is modified. The duct itself actively withdraws sodium and chloride from the sweat, making it less salty. When the sweat arrives at the skin surface it is now at the correct salinity for the anti-microbial peptide and so the skin is protected against the entry of microbes.

So that is one function of sweat. But sweat has another distinct function, that of cooling the body. If a fit person vigorously exercises, or is in a hot atmosphere, copious sweat pours from the sweat glands. This is not a question of the sweat gradually increasing in speed of output. Instead it is a sudden change from the slow basal level to the copious level. As exercise continues, the first sweat glands to change to the copious level are those on the head and upper body, followed by the lower body, with the lower legs always last. This is what we would expect from our evolution under the hot African sun.

At the level of copious sweat output, even more salt (sodium chloride) is taken out of the sweat by the duct, so that there is hardly any salt left in the sweat. This fact enables humans to keep moving over long distances in the heat. Body salt is conserved and only plain water is needed to maintain survival. Also the flow of sweat in the sweat ducts is so fast that skin microbes cannot enter the duct against the force of the outward flow.

However many humans in advanced societies are not fit, and become less fit with advancing years. What effect does this have on the sweat glands? Sweat glands without regular exercise or exposure to heat become habituated to start-stop sweating. In periods of stress, or intermittent slight exercise, or unaccustomed exposure to heat, the flow of basal sweat, or insensible perspiration, slightly increases and the flow of basal sweat becomes fixed at this slightly higher level. This flow is not sufficient to force back the entry of the microbes, but the slight increase in speed through the duct to the skin means that more salt than usual is absorbed by the duct. The salinity of the sweat now falls below the level required for the effectiveness of the anti-microbial peptides and the skin microbes can gain entry to the duct.

As soon as the microbes enter the duct they are attacked by the body immune system and the duct becomes blocked. But it has not been realised that, even though the duct is blocked, the sweat gland continues to pump out sweat under pressure. Just below the duct blockage the duct is ruptured by the pressure and the sweat, instead of reaching the skin surface, spreads into the surrounding skin causing inflammation. The type of inflammation depends on how deep the blockage is in the skin.

So the cause of skin miliaria is the rupture of blocked sweat gland ducts leading to inflammation of the skin. It will be made clear from the next pages on the innatehealth.com website that miliaria is one of the most important human debilitating conditions.

Now we need some definitions to describe aspects of these new discoveries. The fit person, all of whose sweat glands are working properly, we say is in a state of "original habituation". That is to say the habituation is similar to the good habituation achieved from evolution by natural selection. Other people, unfortunately the majority of people in advanced societies, are temporarily or permanently in a state of "adverse habituation". Now that industrialisation has removed the need for people to do manual work all day long, some of their sweat glands are inclined to adverse habituation.

The ducts of the sweat glands, as we have seen, are not just passive tubes but are active organs fulfilling a precise function necessary for survival. These we call "Havards" meaning "Habituating and Velocity Associated Reabsoptive Ducts".

No medical textbook or study has ever mentioned that a slight lowering of total body sodium prevents Havards from resetting to original habituation. This is a discovery new to medical science.

Now that we know the cause of miliaria, how can we stop it? Is extensive vigorous exercise sufficient? Possibly, for people with the time and energy. But there is a snag. If the sweat ducts are blocked and causing skin inflammation, then exercise, or heat, will initially increase the sweat output and thus make the condition worse. We need to unblock the ducts.

As explained above, when the output of sweat increases, even if it is only a slight increase, the body automatically triggers the sweat ducts to conserve the salt (sodium chloride), the basic mechanism for survival under the African sun. This lowering of salinity allows the entry of microbes to block the duct. If we can convince the body that it is not necessary to conserve the salt, then the anti-microbial peptides can do their work and the ducts will be unblocked in a few minutes.

Now we need to eat salt, but eating a surplus of salt does not unblock the ducts. Excess salt is simply excreted from the body via the kidneys. We need to convince the body that there is a surplus of electrolytes including sodium without the electrolytes having to enter the body. We have to bring the electrolytes into the environment of the body but not into the body. We can do this with ActiveSignal^TM, a new invention by Warren Ward. ActiveSignal^TM is carefully designed for signalling only and, unlike drugs, are not absorbed into the body. Also since they are required to signal against adverse habituation, the body must not become habituated to their use and thus ignore the signal. Fortunately, ActiveSignal therapeutic products are very fast acting, and, since they are not absorbed and also have a consistent predictable action, they have no side effects. The first commercial ActiveSignal product is the very successful Equiwinner patch for horses. Products for humans are under development.

Please read on to see how miliaria also causes other conditions, including some killer conditions.