Notes

Most of the various forms of blood doping (including drug treatments like EPO and HIF stabilizers or blood transfusions and substitutions such as HBOC and PFC) increase the concentration of red blood cells and/or increase cardiac output (HR and stroke volume). This, in turn, raises the maximum cardiac output and/or the amount of total hemoglobin present within the bloodstream, thereby allowing for more oxygen (usually supplied by a higher aforementioned cardiac output) to bond to (the increased presence of) RBCs. Proof of this concept is shown in recordings of VO₂max. VO₂max is a measure of the maximum oxygen movement capacity of a human aerobic system per body mass per minute, measured in mL/kg/min. Studies show that in any of the doping methods listed above are applied, the VO₂max increases at an abnormal rate temporarily.

In a more specific case study published by https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20205, an investigation on calves found that application of nitrous oxide (from 0-70% concentration) produced noticeably higher stroke volume, output, and pulmonary pressure. This increased vascular pressure almost certainly output higher volumes of RBCs (with normal amounts of hemoglobin) which allowed for more oxygen affinity within the bloodstream. This means that even without assisted/artificially increased oxygen intake, oxygen is able to respirate more efficiently and quickly into the bloodstream when the effects of nitrous oxide are applied.