It would help if you could give a concrete example of the "gene locus" you found in an article. A gene locus is a gene, whereas a locus of several genes (such as a QTL for blood glucose) could encompass several genes.
I would use OMIM at NCBI to refer to specific genes or gene regions. With T2DM as your query, you will see a lot of database entries returned. I would also use the Map Viewer feature of the human genome at NCBI or the genome view at the UCSC genome browser to look the genes in a given region. With Map Viewer, you can, for example, set to view the "Phenotypes" option. For gene INSR I see T2DM as a phenotype. Zooming out will give me a view of several genes all the way to the entire chromosome.
In many cases, the precise gene may not be known. In these situations, you could include in your list all the genes defined within that region but "score" them lower as it is not certain which gene(s) are responsible for the phenotype.