If you’re 65 or older and suffer from hepatitis C virus but are already on medications for another illness, you may be afraid that getting treated for hep C might boost your risk of bad drug interactions. Your concern is warranted, according to recent findings published in the medical journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics.

For the study, researchers evaluated 541 people undergoing hep C therapy. In the group, a total of 404 individuals were younger than 65, and 137 were 65 or older (41 of whom were 75 or older). Scientists noted that elderly patients took the most medications in addition to their hep C treatment and also experienced significantly higher drug-drug interactions.

Despite this downside to hep C therapy, researchers noted that “with careful pretreatment assessment of [non–hepatitis C] medications, on-treatment monitoring or dose-modifications, significant [drug-drug interactions] and associated adverse events can be avoided.”