- Frontman Nick Jonas has managed type 1 diabetes for two decades.
- The group's “JONAS20: Greetings from Your Hometown Tour” marks its 20th anniversary alongside Nick Jonas’s 20-year journey with diabetes.
- Nick Jonas shares how both milestones have impacted his life and how he leverages his music to raise awareness for type 1 diabetes.
This year, the number 20 holds special significance for renowned artist Nick Jonas.
As the Jonas Brothers celebrate their 20th year as a band, 2025 also marks 20 years since their lead singer's type 1 diabetes diagnosis.
“The alignment is remarkable,” Jonas remarked. “It’s been a wild journey in both… regarding the band, it’s been the adventure of a lifetime, and we’ve been so blessed to be able to do this for 20 years now and to have the support of the most amazing fans.”
Alongside the band’s experience over the last 20 years, he said he has had wonderful and challenging moments managing diabetes. The struggles of controlling his disease have been the lows, while advocating and connecting with others as a spokesperson and through his non-profit have brought him joy.
“In summary, I’m really grateful to have been able to be transparent about [type 1] and to interact with all these wonderful people from all regions of the world who are navigating their own diabetes path, and it’s a really significant feeling to feel like you’re a little less isolated in it,” said Jonas.
The Singer's A1C Announcement to His Audience
To thank his fans, on World Diabetes Day (November 14), he stepped onto the platform during a Jonas Brothers concert and surprised his audience by sharing an uplifting message of hope, accompanied by a mention to his A1C.
“My A1C, which is a collection of numbers over a three-month period, was the best it’s ever been, in fact, most recently,” he revealed.
The show was attended by members of a worldwide group — a network of over 30,000 people worldwide who discuss their experiences with diabetes to help promote a message of resilience, determination, and positivity.
“It was really special for me to get to use the Jonas Brothers’ stage as a place to speak about something that’s obviously very personal to me and on World Diabetes Day, I think it’s natural to get introspective and to tap into sort of what life looks like for me as a now thirty-three-year-old person managing this disease,” he said.
Jonas dedicated the song “A Little Bit Longer” — a tune he wrote early in his career and diabetes journey, to those living with the disease.
“It’s a really important time for me to get to speak on stage like that and play a song that I wrote about these experiences when I was 14 and to see the effect it still has to this day with the audience,” he said.
While the song has taken on a new meaning for him as an adult, he said it is still relevant.
“Now I [have] this great, big community that I belong to that has lifted me up in so many different moments. I think my perspective is perhaps a lot more positive now. It is feasible to live a big, busy life while managing this disease and outlook and viewpoint and all that is an essential piece to persevering.”
Progress in Type 1 Diabetes
Not long ago, life with type 1 diabetes involved more than five insulin injections a day and finger sticks 10 or more times each day. This was a never-ending cycle of injections, guesswork, and vigilance, according to a licensed endocrinologist.
“Delivery devices replaced multiple daily insulin injections. With time, insulin pumps became less bulky and smarter, and eventually learned to ‘communicate’ with the sensors,” the expert explained.
“Algorithms began adjusting insulin on their own, creating hybrid ‘artificial pancreas’ systems that alleviate some of the cognitive load people with type 1 carry every day.”
Jonas is amazed with how far technology has improved since he was first identified.
“The fact that I can receive real time readings of my glucose directly on my phone or smart watch or it can be [shared with] my wife or other family members who I’m traveling away from is just an amazing thing,” he said.
Alongside technology, new therapies aimed at managing diabetes and delaying or altering the disease itself are in development.
“The first immune-therapy capable of postponing type 1’s onset was authorized, and research into protecting or even substituting the body’s insulin-producing cells gained real traction. In labs around the world, scientists are growing stem-cell–derived pancreatic beta cells and testing ways to protect them from the body's defenses,” the doctor continued.
“Responsive insulin” is also being developed to activate only when glucose levels increase, offering a future where insulin works as intuitively as the body once did.
“More advancements will definitely continue to emerge. We’re no longer just improving tools; we’re getting nearer to changing the disease itself,” the physician stated.
Nevertheless, while a family physician concurs that additional innovations will continue to appear, he notes that managing type 1 diabetes remains an demanding task — physically, mentally, and psychologically.
“I truly hope that we’ll see more and more attention to talking about and addressing the burdens and the requirements of having and controlling T1D. We need much more of that, too,” he told.
The Singer Employs Personal Wellness to Control His Diabetes
In addition to medication and technology, Jonas shared some strategies he leans on to handle his diabetes.
To begin, he said he learned to take pressure off himself.
“You’re never going to have the perfect day while managing this disease and even if you’re super on top of your diabetes management, there are just things that are a little beyond your influence and being able to pause, reset, and know that it’s going to be OK on the other side is really important,” he said.
While this is difficult to do at times, he said he learned to practice this early during his diagnosis.
Lately, he has focused on taking vitamins, looking after his skin, and staying well-hydrated.
“It’s a basic thing, but the more water I drink, my glucose levels are better. I don’t know exactly why, but I just find that drinking water has a lot of health benefits,” he noted. “I didn’t put as much emphasis on it when I was younger as I do now, and it’s been really beneficial.”
He also takes walks daily for 30 minutes or longer for his physical, mental, and emotional health.
“It really centers me and even when it’s cold out, getting out in the fresh air is really important when a lot of my day, too, is spent inside for hours at a venue or on a movie location or something,” he said.
He relies on his therapist regularly, too.
“I think it’s really vital to do that personal development,” Jonas said.
Most of all, he encourages everyone living with type 1 diabetes to take part in the diabetes community.
“There will be positive days, there will be tough days, but you can scale this mountain, and there’s some incredible people out there whose experiences will really motivate anybody that’s going through tough moments,” said Jonas.
