You mean smoking is terrible for you. As the cited studies indicate, nicotine itself (delivered by patched / gum) is fairly harmless. Not completely risk free, but nothing at all like smoking.
Studies of snus users have indicated increased risks of cancer in the mouth, throat and gastrointestinal system but have not been conclusive as to how. There's also a newer type of snus not made from tobacco, with pure nicotine as a separate ingredient, but it has been studied much less.
Nicotine is still widely considered harmful for the cardiovascular system though. I've had two surgeries this past year and been told to not even chew nicotine gum for a week before because of how nicotine in my system could lead to complications.
My best interpretation is that nicotine itself probably isn't the-worst-thing-ever if it was restricted to occasional usage, like having a beer on the weekend.
It's probably not a good idea to make a habit of though like with coffee.
There's a theory floating around that it may help with long-Covid symptoms, but there's not a lot of evidence. This may be in part due to the general opposition towards tobacco as extremely unhealthy.
I only heard of this because a neighbor says using nicotine gum restored her sense of smell.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9845100/
Again, anecdotally I had a relative, very heavy smoker, who got Delta and had very mild symptoms. She's 80 and in pretty poor health. Others younger in the same household had it much worse.
https://aacijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s1322...
You don't taste it much unless you consume beer/coffee/water at the same, but if so the right brands and combinations can be quite pleasant.
They also make menthol ones.
Without knowing more about human physiology, this physiological description is a boogeyman. Someone could describe the physiological effects of eating lettuce while making the same claim about said effect and it would be obvious to a layperson as nonsense only because they know the topic. It’s not ridiculous to think this is possibly harmless in certain contexts.
Why? Because it increases blood pressure?
That's a problem if it's chronic and severe, afaik a milk vasoconstrictive effect isn't going to kill you.
> Maybe both aren't great for you?
Maybe? You are the one making strong assertions about vasoconstrictors. Maybe you should take this opportunity to challenge your beliefs on this by digging into scientific literature.
Also, "aren't great" is such a softening of your original opinion "just terrible". Why argue for your ignorance when there is actual scientific literature?