- Frontman Nick Jonas has been living with type 1 diabetes for 20 years.
- The band's “JONAS20: Greetings from Your Hometown Tour” marks its 20th anniversary alongside Nick Jonas’s two-decade experience with diabetes.
- Nick Jonas discusses how these two anniversaries have impacted his life and how he uses his music to promote understanding for type 1 diabetes.
This year, the number 20 holds particular meaning for renowned artist Nick Jonas.
As the Jonas Brothers celebrate their 20th year together, 2025 simultaneously signifies 20 years since their frontman's type 1 diabetes discovery.
“The alignment is remarkable,” Jonas remarked. “It’s been a wild journey in both… in the Brothers sense, 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.”
Parallel to the band’s experience over the last 20 years, he said he has had great and tough moments living with diabetes. The difficulties 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.
“Overall, I’m really grateful to have been able to be transparent about [type 1] and to connect with all these amazing people from all regions of the world who are experiencing their own diabetes journey, and it’s a really big thing to feel like you’re a little less isolated in it,” said Jonas.
The Singer's A1C Announcement to His Audience
To show appreciation to supporters, on World Diabetes Day (November 14), he took to the stage during a Jonas Brothers concert and surprised his audience by sharing an uplifting message of hope, along with a shout-out to his A1C.
“My A1C, which is a collection of numbers over a 90-day period, was the most favorable it’s ever been, actually, most recently,” said Jonas.
The show was visited by members of a global community — a collective of over 30,000 people globally who share their experiences with diabetes to help promote a message of strength, determination, and positivity.
“It was really meaningful for me to get to use the Jonas Brothers’ platform as a place to speak about something that’s obviously very personal to me and on World Diabetes Day, I think it’s fitting to get reflective and to explore sort of what life looks like for me as a now thirty-three-year-old person living with this disease,” he said.
Jonas dedicated the song “A Little Bit Longer” — a melody he wrote at the start of his career and diabetes journey, to those living with the disease.
“It’s a really significant 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 assumed a new significance for him as an adult, he said it is still pertinent.
“Now I [have] this great, big community that I am part of that has supported me in so many various moments. I think my outlook is possibly a lot more optimistic now. It is feasible to live a big, busy life while living with this disease and outlook and viewpoint and all that is an important piece to persevering.”
Progress in Diabetes Management
In the past, life with type 1 diabetes involved more than five daily shots a day and finger sticks 10 or more times each day. This was a constant cycle of needles, estimation, and care, as stated by a licensed endocrinologist.
“Insulin pumps replaced multiple daily insulin injections. With time, insulin pumps became less bulky and smarter, and eventually learned to ‘talk’ with the glucose monitors,” the doctor noted.
“Automated systems began modifying insulin automatically, creating combined ‘automated delivery’ systems that alleviate some of the mental burden people with type 1 carry every day.”
Jonas is amazed with how far technology has advanced since he was first diagnosed.
“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 treatments aimed at managing diabetes and slowing or altering the disease itself are in development.
“The first immune-therapy capable of delaying type 1’s onset was approved, and research into protecting or even replacing the body’s insulin-producing cells acquired real traction. In labs around the world, scientists are growing stem-cell–derived pancreatic beta cells and experimenting with ways to protect them from the body's defenses,” the doctor continued.
“Smart insulin” is also being developed to activate only when blood sugar increase, promising 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 expert concluded.
However, while a family physician agrees that additional innovations will continue to appear, he notes that managing type 1 diabetes remains an intensive task — in terms of health, mentally, and emotionally.
“I truly hope that we’ll see more and more focus to discussing and addressing the burdens and the requirements of living with and managing T1D. We need much more of that, too,” he commented.
The Singer Employs Personal Wellness to Control His Diabetes
Beyond medication and technology, Jonas shared some strategies he relies on to manage his diabetes.
To begin, he said he learned to take pressure off himself.
“You’re never going to have the perfect day living with this disease and even if you’re very diligent with your diabetes management, there are just things that are a little out of your control and being able to take a deep breath, reset, and know that it’s going to be OK on the other side is really crucial,” he said.
While this is difficult to do at times, he said he learned to apply this early during his diagnosis.
Lately, he has focused on taking vitamins, looking after his skin, and staying hydrated.
“It’s a simple thing, but the more water I drink, my glucose levels are better. I don’t know precisely why, but I just find that drinking water has a lot of health advantages,” he noted. “I didn’t put as much focus on it when I was younger as I do now, and it’s been really helpful.”
He also walks daily for 30 minutes or longer for his physical, mental, and emotional health.
“It really grounds me and even when it’s cold out, getting out in the open air is really important when a lot of my day, too, is spent inside for hours at a concert hall or on a movie location or something,” he said.
He leans on his therapist frequently, too.
“I think it’s really important to do that self-work,” Jonas said.
Above all, he urges everyone managing type 1 diabetes to engage with the diabetes community.
“There will be positive days, there will be tough days, but you can scale this mountain, and there’s some remarkable people out there whose stories will really inspire anybody that’s going through difficult times,” he concluded.
