It is well known that reducing calorie intake extends life dramatically, although few would volunteer to go on the starvation diets necessary to achieve this. But what if a doctor's research made a drug that could achieve the same thing while eating a normal diet? Return to September 1990 when five young men share accommodation in the East End for their first year of study at London University. Follow them for 22 more years as they meet up regularly while each pursues a career -as a research doctor, an army officer, a banker, a civil servant and a politician. Will the old flatmates be interested personally or professionally in having access to such a novel medicine once it has been discovered? Follow the five ex-students as their different careers interact in unexpected ways to alter their life expectancy far more than anyone could have anticipated.