CP: You seem to be lumping HRT and Gene Therapy under the same banner. Aren’t they two entirely different things, and isn’t the former much more “ready for prime time” than the latter?
Definitely. See my first post where the WAG was around the timeline for HRT’s acceptance. HRT is already here today, unofficially and off-label for general all-around anti-aging. The lack of formal longitudinal double-blind studies prevents it from being used in mainstream medicine, and I sort of think the stigma around it is blocking enthusiasm to do broader studies.
Gene therapy is potentially much more dangerous, still tricky and in its infancy and I am nowhere near close enough to the science for a WAG around that. I am guessing there will be a few spectacular failures that set it back along with the trickiness around getting informed consent for large studies.
The nice thing about all those athletes out there is that they are paving the unofficial way for us fat and lazy old guys to get rid of our belly fat with shots and pills–plastic surgery in a bottle. Hoorah.
(Note that I’m using HRT in the broadest use of the term–not just talking about anti-menopausal hormones for women…)
This is what I came here to say. Though I’m not nearly as bad as the guy in your link, my belly fat is in the omentum, beneath the muscles, rather than under the skin. When I flex my abs, I can feel them, hard, about 1/2 inch beneath the skin. This is very common among those of us with type 2 diabetes. If this is what you have, your crunches would benefit you by holding the fat in better, while your diet reduces it.
(Bolding mine)
So, was that pun intended? 
S^G