Final answer:
Increasing dissolved oxygen in blood does not significantly increase its oxygen content due to the limited solubility of oxygen and the vital role played by hemoglobin which binds and carries the majority of oxygen in the blood.
Step-by-step explanation:
The oxygen content in blood is not significantly increased by just dissolving additional oxygen because of the low solubility of this gas in blood. The main carrier of oxygen in the blood is hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells capable of binding with oxygen molecules. The concentration of hemoglobin is high enough that it can carry almost a thousand times more oxygen than could be dissolved in the blood directly.
At normal body temperature (37°C), hemoglobin increases the total dissolved oxygen concentration in the blood to 8.8 mM, which is essential for meeting the energy needs of multicellular organisms, including humans. Synthetic oxygen carriers, such as those based on fluorinated alkanes, also display high Henrys law constants for O₂, allowing comparable oxygen concentrations to hemoglobin when used as a blood substitute.