Is it true that corporations influence the conclusions of research studies or papers?
There is always a possibility that an Industry funded project (meaning a company is funding it vs. the government) is influenced.  However, in academia, the idea is that peer reviewed work looks at the methodology and results to decide if it makes sense.  There are also different types of 'research'.


In the media 'A new study...' does not necessarily mean academic publication  (in the case of your link, it was).  Anything is possible, and if an upcoming researcher who needs funding tries to find meaning that benefits a company to get more funding later, than yes, it is possible for research to be 'manipulated'.  In the case that it was a company producing the research themselves, such as a coffee company posting its own research, most likely it is biased.  An example is the bing challenge, which says that research shows people choose bing over google, but that was Microsoft's research.
A company can fund academic research that leads to a publication.  In this situation, there is an acknowledgement of who funded the research.  There are often conflict of interest statements that are included in the publication.