- Lead singer Nick Jonas has been living with type 1 diabetes for 20 years.
- The group's “JONAS20: Greetings from Your Hometown Tour” marks its 20th anniversary alongside Nick Jonas’s two-decade experience with diabetes.
- Nick Jonas discusses how both milestones have impacted his life and how he uses his music to promote understanding for type 1 diabetes.
This year, the number 20 holds special significance for renowned artist Nick Jonas.
While the band commemorates their 20th year as a band, 2025 simultaneously signifies 20 years since their frontman's type 1 diabetes discovery.
“It’s crazy how it lined up,” Jonas remarked. “It's been an incredible ride in both… regarding the band, 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 most amazing fans.”
Alongside the band’s experience over the last 20 years, he said he has had wonderful and challenging moments living with diabetes. The difficulties 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 thankful to have been able to be transparent about [type 1] and to interact with all these amazing people from all regions of the world who are navigating their own diabetes journey, and it’s a really big thing to feel like you’re a little less alone in it,” said Jonas.
The Singer's A1C Announcement to Fans
To show appreciation to supporters, 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, accompanied by a mention to his A1C.
“My A1C, which is a average of numbers over a three-month period, was the best 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 share their experiences with diabetes to help spread a message of resilience, perseverance, and positivity.
“It was really special for me to get to use the Jonas Brothers’ platform 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 introspective 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 important 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 taken on a new significance for him as an adult, he said it is still relevant.
“Now I [have] this great, big community that I belong to that has supported me in so many various moments. I think my outlook is possibly a lot more positive now. It is possible to live a full, active life while managing this disease and mindset and viewpoint and all that is an essential piece to persevering.”
Progress in Type 1 Diabetes
In the past, life with type 1 diabetes involved more than five insulin injections a day and glucose checks 10 or more times each day. This was a never-ending cycle of injections, guesswork, and vigilance, as stated by a licensed endocrinologist.
“Insulin pumps superseded multiple daily insulin injections. With time, insulin pumps became less bulky and smarter, and eventually learned to ‘communicate’ with the glucose monitors,” the expert explained.
“Algorithms began modifying insulin automatically, creating combined ‘automated delivery’ systems that lift some of the mental burden people with type 1 bear every day.”
Jonas is impressed 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 when I am apart from is just an incredible thing,” he said.
In addition to technology, new therapies aimed at managing diabetes and delaying or altering the disease itself are in development.
“The first immunotherapy capable of postponing type 1’s start was authorized, and research into preserving or even replacing the body’s insulin-producing cells acquired real traction. In labs around the world, scientists are cultivating 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 engineered to activate only when blood sugar increase, promising a future where insulin works as naturally 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 expert concluded.
However, while a family physician concurs that further advancements will continue to develop, he points out that managing type 1 diabetes remains an demanding task — physically, cognitively, and emotionally.
“I sincerely hope that we’ll see more and more focus to discussing and helping with the challenges and the requirements of having and managing T1D. We need far 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 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 perfect day living with 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 crucial,” he said.
While this is hard to do at times, he said he learned to practice this soon after his diagnosis.
Recently, he has prioritized taking vitamins, caring for his skin, and staying hydrated.
“It’s a basic thing, but the more water I drink, my glucose levels are more stable. I don’t know precisely why, but I just find that drinking water has a lot of health benefits,” said Jonas. “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 bodily, cognitive, 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 indoors for hours at a venue or on a film set or something,” he said.
He leans on his therapist regularly, too.
“I think it’s really important to do that personal development,” Jonas said.
Above 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 remarkable people out there whose stories will really motivate anybody that’s going through tough moments,” said Jonas.
