If that seems familiar to you, it's probably because you are familiar with germs and disease processes elsewhere in your body. You are already beginning to uncover the truth. If that surprised you, think about the preceding paragraph again. Oral health, logically and reasonably, has many parallels with physical health. It should be.
Oral health can be a matter of life or death for diabetics, hemophiliacs, and others.
Your oral health can protect you from a host of frightening things such as hepatitis or even venereal disease. Bad oral health is a gateway for diseases elsewhere in the body, including but in no way limited to the two just mentioned. By now you may be wondering why this information isn't more widely discussed. And that is one of the most startling, scandalous parts of what you are going to discover. Dentistry today doesn't want you to prevent dental disease because there is too much income to be had repairing disease-damaged teeth.