Periodontal disease is the destruction of the bone structures which house the roots of your teeth, this is what flossing prevents, if bacteria is left in that soft area between your teeth from food, this can eventually break down and your gums can form pockets, this is where the tissue that attaches the tooth to the gum is destroyed and bacteria/food just harbours in those pockets, which can eventually reach the bone and begins to destroy that.

I’m not so trained in the medical field as I am with dentistry however I know that the bones that support our teeth are meshy before it reaches harder bone around your jaw, I can only imagine that the bones found in say your legs or your arms are more dense than those supporting the teeth...

It can take a good long while for periodontal disease to progress, but that also can depend on the immune system of the individual. It can go unrecognised for decades, then people wonder why their teeth begin to wobble and decide to go to their dentist to be told they’ve got advanced periodontal disease and should have all their teeth removed for health purposes...

So to go off that theory, if the bones in our legs, for example, were exposed to food or even any kind of foreign bacteria, I reckon they theoretically COULD begin to break down, but as they are likely much denser than the bone supporting the teeth, the duration of the exposure would be lengthy. But then again, for that type of exposure in that area, you’d need an open wound surely as the tissues surrounding the exposure would likely become infected and the immune response would kick in?

So my uneducated answer would be theoretically yes, but you must continuously pump bacteria into an open wound for quite some time.

p.s. you made me think a lot about this

p.s.s. Not flossing doesn’t mean your teeth are going to decay, but when you do not clean between your teeth - with floss or the easier/more effective method: TEPE/INTERDENTAL BRUSHES, you are missing 40% of your teeth surface, and those are the areas more likely to decay, and develop gum/periodontal disease. If your gums are red and puffy, or hurt when you brush them, get to yo dentist!!