How would you handle if there's a field need to be calculated but need go through few relationships?

I have a question on calculate a count of field or sum of field when i need go through about 4 tables to get the results. For example, table1, table2, table3 and table4.

The relationships defined as table 1 has many table2 table2 belong to many table 3 table4 belong to many table3

When I am queuing table1, I need to count or sum needed field. from table4. In this circumstances, how would you handle it?

Will you create a field name field_count or sum_of_field in table1? And then use cron job to update the field in table1.

Or using relationship to get the total every time when query executed?