- Frontman Nick Jonas has managed type 1 diabetes for 20 years.
- The band's “JONAS20: Greetings from Your Hometown Tour” celebrates its 20th anniversary concurrent with Nick Jonas’s two-decade experience with diabetes.
- Nick Jonas shares how both milestones have impacted his life and how he leverages his music to promote understanding for type 1 diabetes.
This year, the number 20 carries special significance for renowned artist Nick Jonas.
As the Jonas Brothers celebrate their 20th year together, 2025 also marks 20 years since their frontman's type 1 diabetes diagnosis.
“It’s crazy how it lined up,” the singer stated. “It’s been a wild journey in both… in the Brothers sense, it’s been the ride of a lifetime, and we’ve been so fortunate to be able to do this for 20 years now and to have the support of the world’s greatest fans.”
Parallel to the band’s experience over the last 20 years, he said he has had wonderful and challenging moments living with diabetes. The struggles of managing his condition have been the lows, while advocating and engaging others through his role 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 interact with all these wonderful people from all regions of the world who are experiencing their own diabetes path, and it’s a really big thing to feel like you’re a little less isolated in it,” he added.
Nick Jonas’ A1C Shoutout to His Audience
To thank his fans, on World Diabetes Day (November 14), he stepped onto the platform during a Jonas Brothers concert and delighted his audience by sharing an inspiring message of hope, along with a mention to his A1C.
“My A1C, which is a average of numbers over a 90-day period, was the most favorable it’s ever been, actually, 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 strength, determination, and optimism.
“It was really meaningful for me to get to use the Jonas Brothers’ stage as a place to speak about something that’s clearly very personal to me and on World Diabetes Day, I think it’s fitting to get reflective and to tap into kind of what life looks like for me as a now 33-year-old person managing 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 challenges when I was 14 and to see the impact 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 belong to that has lifted me up in so many different moments. I think my outlook is perhaps a lot more positive now. It is possible to live a big, busy life while living with this disease and outlook and viewpoint and all that is an essential piece to powering through.”
Progress in Type 1 Diabetes
In the past, life with type 1 diabetes meant more than five insulin injections a day and glucose checks 10 or more times each day. This was a never-ending cycle of injections, estimation, and vigilance, as stated by a licensed endocrinologist.
“Insulin pumps superseded multiple daily insulin injections. With time, insulin pumps became less bulky and more advanced, and eventually learned to ‘talk’ with the sensors,” the doctor noted.
“Automated systems began adjusting insulin on their own, creating combined ‘automated delivery’ systems that alleviate some of the cognitive load people with type 1 carry every day.”
Jonas is impressed with how far technology has advanced since he was first identified.
“The fact that I can receive instant data of my glucose directly on my phone or smart watch or it can be [shared with] my wife or other family members when I am apart from is just an amazing thing,” he said.
In addition to technology, new therapies aimed at controlling the condition and slowing or altering the disease itself are in development.
“The first immunotherapy capable of delaying type 1’s onset was authorized, and research into preserving or even substituting the body’s insulin-producing cells acquired real traction. In labs around the world, scientists are cultivating lab-grown pancreatic beta cells and testing ways to protect them from immune attack,” said the specialist.
“Smart insulin” is also being engineered to activate only when blood sugar rises, offering a future where insulin works as intuitively as the body once did.
“Further progress will absolutely continue to emerge. We’re no longer just enhancing devices; we’re getting closer to changing the disease itself,” the physician stated.
Nevertheless, while a family physician concurs that additional innovations will continue to appear, he points out that managing type 1 diabetes remains an demanding undertaking — physically, cognitively, and emotionally.
“I sincerely 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 Self-Care to Manage His Diabetes
Beyond medication and technology, Jonas discussed some approaches he relies on to handle his diabetes.
To begin, he said he learned to be less hard on himself.
“You’re never going to have the ideal 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 hard to do at times, he said he learned to practice this early during his diagnosis.
Recently, he has focused on taking vitamins, caring for 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 hydrating has a lot of health benefits,” said Jonas. “I didn’t put as much emphasis 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 bodily, cognitive, and emotional health.
“It really grounds 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 concert hall or on a film set or something,” he said.
He relies on his therapist regularly, too.
“I think it’s really important to do that self-work,” Jonas said.
Above all, he encourages 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 experiences will really motivate anybody that’s going through difficult times,” he concluded.
