How should I figure the studies?

I have a problem with scientific studies. Or maybe it's just the science part that is the problem. I know that every research center has a bank of computers stuffed with all kinds of RAM and other acronyms, but with the widespread use of computers with data processing capabilities, processing data seems to be what everyone does.

I wonder how the studies get engineered these days. Is the data driving the study, or is the need to know something driving the gathering of data? Does some researcher surf the sites until he comes across a data bank with statistics about a population and a substance and then start running numbers? I am just asking questions here.

The reason I was wondering is that there seem to be more studies on the efficacy of tomatoes, wine and coffee that all the other studies combined. Perhaps a requirement in Research Studies 101 is for students to find out something good about coffee. If students do real well, they can go to work for the Institute for Coffee Studies when they enter the wonderful world of work which may mean that they get to sit around all day and drink coffee. No wonder coffee drinkers have less stress and fewer headaches. (I didn't make up that part about the Institute.)

I will be the first to admit that when I was in school, a computer was a picture in my science book of a huge structure that filled a whole room. There were only a few of them, and researchers had to wait in line to use them. There were probably protocols for establishing priorities for computer use. Researchers probably didn't get to use the computers for finding out why people don't ride their bikes to work. (That is like trying to figure out why people eat doughnuts.)

Even now, I can't imagine that information on coffee consumption is in the need-to-know-now category, but for some reason, it seems to be the study of the day. Coffee consumption can't be very interesting either, but apparently there are more studies done on coffee than there are on cancer.

Speaking of which: “A cup or more daily (of coffee) may cut your risk of some types of head and neck cancers says an analysis of nine studies. Decaf doesn't seem to do the trick, neither does tea.” That was it.

I just read that in the health section of a widely circulated national magazine. If anyone needs to know which one, give me a call. I hesitate to embarrass the magazine given that the only bit of specific information in the whole discussion is the number “nine.” Perhaps somewhere in a computer or an obscure magazine article, there are some more details. Maybe not. The rest of the article was about expensive drugs, eating fish, keeping journals and, yes, sitting around.

Can anyone tell me what I just read in that magazine? Does it mean that if I am afraid of head and neck cancers I should drink more coffee? What if I don't drink any coffee? What if I am afraid of bathrooms? Or what if only stomach and liver cancers are prevalent in my family tree? Can I spend less time in bathrooms?

Should I search the web until I find a study about stomach and liver cancers? Should I begin a habit this late in my life that ties me to the coffeemaker, the bathroom and another aisle in the grocery store on the outside chance that I might develop “some type” of head or neck cancer? And who exactly pays pays for this research, and how are the conclusions reached?

And then, how do they control these types of studies? Does someone (outside of at the Institute for Coffee Studies) eat or drink nothing but coffee for six years? Otherwise how can researchers rule out the effects of other “contributing factors” like, for instance, the reluctance of members of the study group to ride a bike to work, which really could be linked to how many cups of coffee they need before they start out for work and how many bathrooms there are along the way.